


Toothless

by Linenpixel



Series: Prism Arc [3]
Category: Invisible Inc. (Video Game)
Genre: (of the medgel type), (sort of), Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Background Character Death, Canon-Typical Violence, Drug Use, Dystopia, Fascism, Gen, Hallucinations, Medical Procedures, Racism, Swearing, what I think is reasonable worldbuilding extrapolation based on what we know about K&O
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-07 00:21:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 24,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13422729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linenpixel/pseuds/Linenpixel
Summary: “We’re trying to rescue someone, and we can’t even be sure what she looks like?”When Invisible, Inc. learns of a chance to acquire a valuable asset, Decker, Shalem and Xu must make a last-minute dash across Europe, without most of their usual equipment, to do something that doesn't seem overwhelmingly possible.





	1. Chapter 1

Vienna, 2073

* * *

 

“Decker. You’ll do. Do you keep up with the holovids?”

I stare up blearily at Central’s face. The answer is yes — I haven’t abandoned hope they’ll start making good movies again. So far I’ve been disappointed. But I have a feeling she doesn’t want me to get into that right now.

“It is relevant. This is a briefing.” She steps back, and my vision struggles to focus. “If you want it to be. Say no and I’ve got about sixty seconds to find someone else to go to London.”

London? What? But didn’t the jet just leave on a mission to … Jakarta? My mind races as I try desperately to reassure myself that I do know where I am, and when I am … that I haven’t lost time … that this is March … March what? Twenty-… somethingth?

“Yes, the jet is out. We’ll be improvising.” 

Of course she knew what I was thinking. No point in wondering at it. Central is Central. And I, Decker, make no claims that my mental processes aren’t fairly obvious. 

“An opportunity has come up. Unexpected. A chance to acquire a valuable asset. Are you in?”

Working at Invisible, you get used to making split-second decisions. “Yes,” I say, or try to. My throat is dry.

“Sit up.”

I do so. She hands me a mug. Her tea mug. It’s mostly empty. She digs in one of her pockets and hands me two pills. “Caffeine and a painkiller. And may I give you a stim?”

“Okay,” I say, and hold out my arm. I let her roll up my coat sleeve. I look away while she jabs me. I’m not too keen on needles.

I could make some kind of cynical joke about preferring bottles, but now isn’t the time. I swallow the pills using the last of Central’s tea.

Central is generously not making any mention of the circumstances — whatever they were — I don’t entirely remember — that led to me passing out in this break room at some point last night. It’s the little room that hardly anyone ever uses, round the corner from the control room. Not the worst place in the building to pass out, come to think of it, and I was on a couch, and not covered in vomit, so maybe last night wasn’t too bad …

“… the work of Esther Martins?” Central is talking. Shit, did I miss anything? I don’t think so. I pay attention. “Or you may know her as Prism.”

“Uh … I think so.” There are so many young names these days, and none of them are Ingrid Bergman. 

But that one did sound familiar … oh. “She was in …”

“ _The Istanbul Four?_ Yes.” Central’s voice is matter-of-fact, but there is a slight change in it. She has never actually said anything about it one way or the other, but there is an unspoken agreement among all of us Invisible agents that we don’t talk about _The Istanbul Four._

“Remember how she completely fell off the radar? Well, she’s back on ours.”

“Oh … yes. Some fake scandal. One video of her dancing at a protest, or something…”

“She wasn’t dancing, but that’s irrelevant. The matter at hand —”

Just then Dr. Xu bursts through the door at a dead run. I’ve never seen him move so fast. His hands are full of various pieces of tech, which isn’t unusual for Xu, though nothing else about this situation is usual. I’m alert enough now for my brain to recognize that, at least.

“I could only find one camera canister and one hologram projector,” Xu gasps. “The rest are in storage, on the other floor —”

“That’ll have to do,” Central cuts him off. “We need to hurry. Decker, get up. I’ll explain the rest as we walk.”

I stand, trying to conceal the stab of pain in my head as I do so, though I doubt I’m fooling Central.

“Did you get the tablets?” Central asks Xu.

“Yes, of course.” He hands one of them to me as Central nods approvingly. They’re the standard tablets all Invisible agents carry on missions and use to hack consoles and terminals.

“It won’t be much use to you, Decker, on this mission, but I’m equipping you anyway. And you’re coming too, Xu. It’s you and Decker and Shalem.”

“Very well.” Xu seems pleased. 

Wait, what? Why wouldn’t it be much use? I occurs to me that I still don’t know what we’re doing, and also that the stim is starting to hit me. It’s not the same, not the same as what I get from alcohol, but you won’t hear me complaining. And more pertinently, I no longer feel like death warmed over. More pertinently to the mission. Whatever it is.

“Incognita was scanning SecNet and picked up some corporate plans. We are going to interrupt those plans.”

Okay. She’s explaining.

We’re in the hallway now, one of the twisty hallways inside Invisible, with their grim, reinforced walls. I put the tablet in my coat pocket and hurry after her and Xu. 

“There’s this group, one we knew about, but relatively small potatoes—” She stops short just outside the mission control room. “No, there isn’t time for that. Wait here.”

She steps into range of the scanner above the door and it slides open for her. She rushes in and I hear a familiar voice, clipped and precise like Central’s but with a German accent instead of an English one.

“Your timing is perfect. It finished only seconds ago.”

“Thank you, Karolin.”

Xu pokes his head into the room, then jumps back almost immediately as Central comes running out again. She has something small and white in her hand … a hard drive. She holds it out to him, and he takes it from her as though it’s made of glass, or possibly like it’s a really bitey small kitten.

“Xu, you know know how important this is. She can self-destruct if necessary — and will do so at the end of the mission — but I do not want to even consider the possibility of her falling into the wrong hands. Do you understand — oh, Shalem.”

Xu and I look round. Yes, there he is. Shalem 11. Somehow managing to look like he’s ambling, though he’s moving quite fast. His dark suit is entirely unwrinkled. 

Central moves to meet him.

Xu follows after her. “Central — about that — you can trust me, I assure you.”

“Good. Now —” She looks at her phone. “I can afford to spend about three minutes on a briefing. Gather round.”

We do so. Xu is still holding the thing like it’s the Holy Grail or the Maltese Falcon or something.

“Technical details first, though at the same time I’m not going to go into them too much. That drive contains something like a partial clone of Incognita. And no, Xu, this is not the time to explain why you feel that term is inaccurate.”

Xu nods, but looks like he’d still be quite happy to explain.

“It contains only a small fragment of her consciousness, and only part of her capabilities. There was only room on there for one program. I’ve chosen Parasite. And since you won’t have the jet, she can’t pull down power.”

Oh, that … does change things. Makes whatever the hell it is we’re doing considerably harder than usual.

“She does have room to store a small amount of power for a short amount of time. You’ll have to hack any consoles you find. But only the person holding the drive” — she looks again at Xu — “will be able to hack power for her.”

Okay. Another difference. Normally our hacking tablets are all linked through the Operator interface. And we normally don’t bother much with consoles anyway, because we can just equip a good power-link program and get all the electricity we need from the jet. But the jet isn’t here, it’s in Jakarta — or on its way — what time is it, anyway? — and with Internationale on it …

“I realize that this will be a challenge for you, working with only a tiny fraction of her usual self. But nevertheless she is in some sense Incognita and I want you to think of her as Incognita. Well, not actually Incognita, because that would be confusing. You can call her Incognita Beta, Beta for short.”

“Yes. That is an acceptable name.” Another very familiar voice emanates from the control room. This one is artificial and cold. Artificially cold. And artificially staticky. Central didn’t _have_ to make it sound like that. Or Xu, or Karolin, or whoever programmed that particular aspect of the thing —

“Thank you, Incognita,” Central says.

Look, I accept it. It’s 2073. AIs exist. Well, actually very few of them do by my standards — and we’re the only ones in the world who have something _exactly_ like Incognita …

“Would you close the door?” 

Central was talking to Incognita. The control room door slides shut without a sound.

Look, that could have just been a regular voice-controlled door. Identical from my perspective. I’m not so old-fashioned that I …

… well, okay, I am, but …

But Central is _weird_ about Incognita in a way that goes beyond everyone else around me who happily chats to their phones and light switches, and I know I’m not the only one at Invisible who thinks so. Though the one time I tried to bring it up with Internationale she somehow managed to turn the topic onto something about unions, so …

“Xu, your headpiece is tactically useless to us, but feel free to keep it on. It won’t attract suspicion.”

He nods. “I will. I’m used to it.”

Oh, yeah. That pair of cans Xu wears is legal and not too uncommon among techy types. Unlike Internationale’s wireless scanner/emitter, which is spectacularly illegal and would be extremely useful to us on this mission, from the sounds of things, as it allows her to hack power from consoles remotely. But she’s not here. She’s on the jet.

Apparently Xu wears the damn thing because he likes listening to electronic noise for its own sake. I don’t even pretend to understand. But then, my fellow agents can’t appreciate a good antique revolver, either, so …

“— since you’ll be doing this without weapons.”

Wait, what? I pay attention.

“And also without your cloaking rig, Decker.” Central looks at me for just a moment, and I try as hard as I can to look like I know what she’s talking about and also like I don’t feel like she’s staring into my soul.

“But I have every confidence in your ability to improvise. In _all_ of your abilities.” 

She sweeps her gaze across all of us, and — shit. It hits me what she said. No cloaking rig. I mean, I should have figured by now — if it was important that I have it, she’d have already given it to me — but … damn. That thing is like a second skin. On missions, that is. Feels that way. Even though Shalem says I overuse it and it’s not always that useful anyway …

Yes, I do like some tech. Or make use of it, anyway. Look, I never said I was asking for a medal for consistency.

“Were we really the best agents available?” Shalem asks.

“Yes,” says Central. “At least, you were the only agents available who can safely go out in public and take a train.”

Oh, yeah, that. Xu, Shalem and I have all had plastic surgery. As part of our new lives at Invisible. Yeah, they gave me this new nose, can ya believe it? Though I suspect Shalem has drastically altered his identity numerous times before, what with having been a professional assassin and all …

“A train that’s leaving in just over ten minutes,” Central says sharply, with another glance at her phone. “We’ll continue this in the elevator.”

We rush after her, down another twisting side hallway. She’s already impatiently waiting to press the button when we get there. For a sixty-seven-year-old she can move awfully fast. Then we’re all in there with her, she nods, and we go up. This is a regular elevator, the kind that just goes up and down, not the kind that tears your atoms to pieces and then glues them back together again in a different spot. No, Xu, I don’t need an explanation of how that’s not really how it works and how I don’t understand quantum entanglement. I notice he’s finally put Incognita — no, Beta — whatever the damn thing is — into his messenger bag instead of holding it.

“Okay.” Central is scanning her phone again. “Xu has a credit chip with ten thousand untraceable credits on it. Just in case.”

Ah, yes, untraceable credits. Another way if saying that it totally suits the corps’ interests to have a certain amount of a black market going on, something they can use to … occasionally hire companies like Invisible. Which they know exists — as a “freelance intelligence agency” — though they have no clue who our leader really is. 

Obviously. If they did, we would have a major “K&O stormtroopers bursting through the door” problem.

Okay, they don’t actually call them stormtroopers, but that is something about which I really, really, do not give a fuck.

And they also have no idea that “Invisible, Inc.” exists at the physical location occupied by our front company, Ciel Augmentationsforschung. Which is, as far as the corps know, a minor player in the Vienna indy tech scene.

“Are we going to use the credits to get Decker some new clothes?” Shalem asks, curling his lip at me. “Or do you really expect him to fit in on this mission dressed like that?”

“Oh, so you expect to fit in on this mission without being able to use your precious rifle? Can you even comprehend a mission like that?” I snap back. Or try to. Okay, it wasn’t the snappiest thing to try and snap.

Central exhales, pointedly, and we both shut up. At exactly that moment, the elevator stops and the door opens.

We’re on the ground floor, in the tiny vestibule that marks the boundary between Invisible, Inc. and the rest of the world. As we step out, I do try to de-rumple my clothes with my hands. And I realize for the first time that my hat is still on my head. Well, when I fall asleep fully clothed, I _commit_. And it is pretty well molded onto my head by now.

It’s an antique. So’s the trenchcoat. Both genuine articles from the 40s.

Yes, I wear antiques. Things were made to be appreciated.

And believe me, I do appreciate the past. When I say the 40s, I always mean the 1940s, not the 2040s, unlike some people.

Okay, most people. Practically everybody.

And this is not the time. I force myself to pay attention to the present. To Central.

“Okay,” she says. She hasn’t left the elevator. “You’re going to London. Xu has coordinates for the building. And the time. You rescue the target and bring her to the safe house. We’ll find a way to bring her back to HQ from there. Xu, you can explain the rest to Decker on the way. Discreetly, of course.”

Xu nods, but the elevator door is already closing. Then Central’s gone.

“Come on,” says Shalem, holding his hand to the scanner on the door out of the vestibule. 

The hallway outside is empty. It’s a service hallway running the length of the building, between the shop spaces that our front company rents out. Couldn’t have valuable Vienna real estate space going to waste. I mean we really couldn’t. To not make optimal use of our brick-and-mortar storefront would potentially attract suspicion, and Central would walk over cut glass if it meant reducing suspicion by a thousandth of a percent. Okay, fine, she’d probably get someone _else_ to walk over cut glass … at least, I can’t say for certain she wouldn’t … 

… but anyway …

Anyway, as a sort of bonus to her and our continued general existence, a bunch of pretentious indy boutiques get to count themselves lucky to not have K&O as their direct landlord. 

From the outside, the door we just came through looks like an ordinary maintenance door with no special security, but trust me, it’s not.

“Come _on_ ,” says Shalem again, more impatiently, and I hurry after him. Xu is already opening the door at the end of the hallway — extremely low security on that one, by our standards, since it’s used by the shops. Then we’re in a delivery alley — then out on the street, dodging around people. It’s quite crowded. The sun is bright between the long shadows cast by the tall buildings. The people look annoyed. Ah, Vienna.

Shalem looks back at me once more, then starts running. Fast. Xu and I follow. My knees complain, but they don’t really have a choice.

“How much time?” Shalem asks Xu over his shoulder.

“Eight minutes,” answers Xu, only gasping slightly. The bastard, he’s older than me. And Shalem, of course, is gliding effortlessly.

“Leaves at 17:55,” Xu adds. 

What? Shit. Looks like I slept through the whole day. Well, everyone keeps odd hours at Invisible anyway, what with people leaving for missions on the other side of the world and all that …

_Focus on the mission,_ I tell myself. _On running._

Luckily for us — well, not luck, exactly, so much as that Central would have presumably come up with a completely different plan if it wasn’t the case — Invisible headquarters is within a few blocks of Vienna’s main train station. In the district that’s still called Favoriten, because if there’s one thing K&O respects, it’s tradition. Though they rebuilt it in their standard, shiny, soulless style …

“We can make it,” Xu says to me. “Priority screening. X-ICE.”

He pronounces the acronym the German way. _Iks-ee-tsey-eh,_ as my clumsy ears would put it. Executive-Intercity-Express. Well, Central must really want us in London quickly. It will get us there in just over an hour.

“Here,” says Shalem, leading us into a side street, where we bump into fewer people. We still attract a lot of stares — between the fact that we’re running, that I dress funny, and that Shalem has a skin tone that makes a certain kind of person enthuse about how he looks exactly like he’s from Southern Europe so they don’t see why we have to bring _race_ into it.

Or maybe they are staring more at me than at him, after all, but —

We turn round another corner, and a reflection of the sun hits me in the eyes and I almost trip. Xu pauses, but as soon as he sees me finding my footing again he continues running. Shalem doesn’t even look back. 

There — it was from high up on that building over there, the more than usually glassy one, though everything in Favoriten is grey and glassy. And new. Mostly no older than 2058.

Vienna didn’t do too well in the Resource Wars, for political reasons I don’t want to get into, but the corps generously rebuilt it once they’d freed the world from the scourge of Olivia Gladstone.

And in the central parts of the city, they rebuilt the historical buildings with scrupulous attention to detail. Walking around Innere Stadt, you’d have no reason to believe the twenty-first century ever happened. Or possibly even the twentieth.

I have to admit, it's enough to impress me as an … as an … damn, why did I have to open that can of worms? American. USian, though since that involves the word _united_ it’s been a long time since it made any sense. Californian. It’s kind of hard to talk about nationality these days, what with nations not existing. Well, no. That’s not true at all. You can talk about it very easily. But I don’t want to.

But anyway, I used to live in L.A. And work in L.A. As a … corporate chief of security. Which I also don’t want to talk about.

Shalem is slowing down. Of course. We’re within a hundred meters of the train station now. He’s not a fool. We proceed at a walking pace through the crowd. Keep elbow aggression to a bare minimum as we approach the security gates.

_Act normal, Decker_ , I tell myself. _Good luck with that._

Xu, looking like he actually is completely calm, pulls out his tablet and flashes the barcode from the X-ICE tickets at the screen-face of some kind of half-robot-half-kiosk thing. Its arms swivel to point us into the Priority lane. Lucky us.

Though it actually is lucky, or at least suits our purposes — Central’s purposes — because the line is very short. Unlike the dense roped-in snakes of the masses who couldn’t afford X-ICE tickets.

Internationale, if I’m using the term “masses” wrong, that is also not something I need explained to me. And you’re not about to do that, because you’re not here. You’re on the jet. _Seriously, Decker, get it together._ I’ll be hearing things like Banks, next. 

And if I did, she’d probably still be a better agent than me. Banks, I mean, though also Internationale, and … oh, never mind. I have no idea where Banks is right now. She wasn’t one of the agents on the mission to Jakarta. That was Internationale, Nika, Briar, and Flamme.

Oh, yeah. Of course. There’s that thing with the corps wanting Banks’s head to the tune of some preposterous amount of credits. Though not as much as they want Internationale’s. Or Central’s.

Anyway, we’re in a line. Rapidly approaching four armed security personnel in grey K&O uniforms. The classy uniforms, the double-breasted jackets with ties; no armour. Interestingly enough, I’m not actually elated about the fact that they’re humans.

There’s a K&O logo hanging from the ceiling, that stylized spiky thing that looks vaguely like a plane and vaguely like a sword and vaguely like an eagle and vaguely like the poster for _Snakes on a Plane_ and look, I never said my cinematic dives into the past were limited to _good_ movies …

“Destination?”

We’re there. The lead guard — I recognize from his uniform he’s a Captain — is holding Xu’s tablet and pretending he can’t just read the information on the tickets.

“London,” says Xu confidently.

“Purpose of the trip?”

“Business.”

I keep staring at the logo — white on a dark grey background — as Xu answers more questions. About the hologram projector and the camera canister. We’re giving a presentation. In London. We’re recording the presentation. And he didn’t actually _need_ to bring the camera that spontaneously sets itself up when you throw it into a room, but it’s one of his favourite toys. It’s all perfectly plausible and Xu looks the part perfectly. With his waistcoat and tie and headset and rather-esoteric-but-entirely-legal-as-far-as-these-chumps’-scanners-will-pick-up arm augments _,_ he’s the picture of the more eccentric type of corporate scientist. And Shalem is wearing a suit that practically screams _by wearing this I have won the moment I entered the boardroom_. Only I look out of place — and hey, I’m more of an executive than either of these two. I actually was one. 

Okay, fine, that’s not something to be proud of. 

But you know what, out of all the sins you could definitely accuse me of, I think pride is fairly low down the list.

Shalem nudges me, and I snap back to the present moment. Tablets. They want to scan our tablets. I hand mine over. They won’t find anything on there either. We have very good tech stuff that I freely admit I don’t understand in the slightest. Central does, and that’s what matters. Incognita does. No, fuck it, that thing can’t _understand_ anything. It’s just a computer. But it’s very, very good not only at encryption but also at being undetectable, and creating things that are undetectable. That’s the key to what we do, after all, to what Invisible does …

One of the guards hands my tablet back. Okay. The tech is through and now it’s just the question of our bodies.

I fix my eyes on the logo again, throughout the process, but there’s no ignoring that they’re paying much more attention to Shalem than to Xu and me. But then it’s over — except not, because we have augments, and there’s another scanner, another yoke to pass under, and Xu would call me old-fashioned for saying that, though I’ll note that I’ve never exactly seen him get enthusiastic about _these_ applications of technology, about … about …

You know, sometimes I just don’t finish my thoughts. I’d like to blame it on the alcohol but I probably can’t.

And then we’re through. They found nothing of interest in my neural networking or Shalem’s enhanced optics or Xu’s subdermal tools. Because those were all designed to show up as something slightly different than they actually are, unless you look very closely. Which they didn’t. We’re through. They wave us on. At no point did they actually ask us for ID. K&O has freedom of movement within its corporate zone. Now, your chances of getting a job in a place where they don’t like the look of your face are …

… are something I’m not going to think about, because …

… because the past happened, it’s 2073 …

… and we have a train to catch.

And the platform is fairly crowded, despite our executive tickets, because there are some matters where efficiency takes priority over making executives feel special, and other intercity trains use this line as well. Ones that stop more often. The X-ICE gets across Europe as quickly as it does by only stopping in a handful of major cities. And even then the main limit on its speed is how long it takes to decelerate safely for every stop. That old thing about how the weakest point of any system is the humans, or — wait, no. That isn’t the thing I was thinking of, not exactly. But something like that. Something along those lines.

And wait, doesn’t Internationale say something … about … about …

“We made it,” says Shalem. “We still have a minute.”

“Actually, it’s a minute late,” says Xu, pointing to a glowing _Ankunft_ screen. I know that means _Arrivals_. The assumption is that anyone who wants a translation will just hold their phone up. And K &O is big on regionalization. Regional values. Hey, it’s just good business sense.

A woman standing nearby sniffs — at the concept of lateness, not at Xu, or at least I’m going to assume so. She’s White, of course, and probably Austrian, or German — or maybe French — okay, I can’t be sure — but she’s very obviously someone who will be quick to _tell_ you her nationality. She probably won’t need to _tell_ you that she’s wearing turquoise earrings, though, because she’s holding her head in a way designed to make that fact sufficiently obvious.

Look, it’s not the 20s. The 2020s, I mean. We’re fine.

We’re in Vienna, we’re going to London, we’ll be fine.

And security really was remarkably easy, all things considered. It wouldn’t surprise me if Central dropped a little money into the system somewhere. A business expense, along with the tickets and our ten thousand credits — and wait, where did Xu go?

Oh, there he is — brandishing a large bottle of water, which he holds out to me. “Here.” He gestures vaguely with his other arm, and I realize he rushed over to a clump of vending machines on the platform while Shalem and I were standing waiting.

“You need this,” he adds, his voice growing louder — over the sudden gust of wind as the X-ICE pulls up to the platform.

“It’s overpriced,” says Xu, still half yelling, “but not as overpriced as the water on the train will be.”

Some of the probably-Austrians around us look annoyed. Others nod as though he’s said something especially wise.

And some of them stand back as soon as they realize we’re boarding the X-ICE. Possibly they’ve noticed the cost of Shalem’s suit.

There’s no extra security at the carriage door, only a smiling woman checking tickets. Xu shows her his tablet and points to the three of us. She smiles wider and waves us in.

And once we’re inside the carriage, no-one gives us a second glance, though that’s partly because everyone I can see is either sleeping or busily bent over various electronic devices, or, in a few cases, actual files of papers. Which must mean they’re working on something especially confidential.

They’re executives. They’re executiving. And that’s not sleeping, it’s power napping. Get it right, Decker. You do know this world, even if you wish you didn’t.

The seats are wide, only one on each side of the aisle, really not so much seats as small cubicles, with a fold-out desk in each. The carriage is about three-quarters full, and we can’t find seats together, but Shalem takes one only one seat down from me. On the other side of the aisle. He’s not even trying to hide that he’s keeping an eye on me. Xu finds a seat farther along, opposite what looks like a genuine corporate scientist who does look up long enough to nod vaguely at him. He has some kind of cranial augment, and a data port placed conspicuously on his forehead, unlike most people, even Xu, who hide them at the back of the neck or behind an ear.

Then the train starts moving, and even though it’s smooth, so smooth, I feel the pressure of acceleration pushing me back against my seat. I close my eyes, just for a moment, and let myself …

… disappear into a world of darkness and the sensation of heaviness …

… like sinking into the sea, sinking deep, down to the depths where the water will cave in your skull …

… but then I open them again. Any illusions of being elsewhere are kind of shattered by an annoyingly loud conversation in a language I don’t understand — pretty sure it’s Russian — coming from the far end of the carriage. Some businessmen — and they are men — are heated about something. And now the pressure is gone anyway. The train is at speed.

I adjust my coat. Take the tablet out of my pocket because the last thing I need to do is sit on it. I remember I have the water bottle.

It’s actually K&O brand water, not one of their sub-brands. Makes sense since it’s from a train station. The logo is fairly small, though. Most of the bottle’s surface is taken up by a picture of some mountains. Okay, fine, I know that’s the Grossglockner in the Alps, not just “some mountains”.

And okay, fine, the water does taste good going down my throat and Xu knew what he was doing when he got it for me.

I take another sip, slowly. I look at the bottle again. It helpfully informs me that it contains two _Nösel_ of water. Oh, yeah. They did that. Went back to pre-metric measures. In 2065. Another part of _regionalization_. 

Interestingly enough, FTM, in whatever-the-hell-you-call-the-place-I’m-from, _didn’t_ do that.

But anyway, there’s a measurement in milliliters in smaller print at the bottom. They’ve never tried to hide that everyone is still using metric behind the scenes.

My tablet buzzes. I pick it up to stop the buzzing.

Xu has sent me a text. Completely in the clear, over the train’s Wi-Fi.

Which is fine, because right now the tablets are booted into the decoy volume — yeah, I do understand some of this stuff, the basics anyway — and Xu knows how to communicate without giving the game away. At least, I hope so.

_We’ll have some time to kill once we get there._

I text back, _Ok_.

_This was the only train that would get us there in time, but the event doesn’t start until approx 9 London time._

_Ok._

Yes, Xu knows how to be discreet. And I remind myself to pay attention. Nine.

_We’ll take the tube._

I reply, _Great, so we’re slumming it?_. 

I’m staying in character. As the executive the bot or possibly even human monitoring this conversation thinks I am.

Xu doesn’t respond. Nobody appreciates my attempts at an acting career.

Oh, there he is again. _We have SLAM data._

Yeah, that’s a completely innocuous sentence in and of itself. Everyone uses Simultaneous Localization and Mapping. This train is driving itself using SLAM. You can't buy a vacuum cleaner that doesn't use SLAM. But in context, from Xu, it tells me a lot. Now I know that we have — that Central’s bought, somewhere on the black market — SLAM data for whatever building it is we’re breaking into. So we’re not going in totally unprepared. We know the floorplan. And, presumably, something about their security systems.

Which won’t be any substitute for our usual Operator interface, of course. What was it Central said? Only Xu will be able to hack power for Incognita to use. Wait, will Xu have to be next to a device to hack it? That could cause serious problems.

_Can she get in there as usual?_ I send the message to Xu, hoping it’s both clear enough and not too clear.

He texts back, _Yes. No problem._

Okay. Good. So Incognita will be, somehow, doing her usual thing. Undetectable, ghost in the system. _We control that camera. Its eyes are ours now._

It’s what she — it — is good for.

But still, without Operator we won’t have the instant mind-to-mind communication that I wouldn’t exactly say I _like_ but that I have gotten pretty used to. No tactical overlay which, I have to admit, does blend seamlessly with your vision in a way that feels completely natural as long as you don’t think about it. And, of, course, we have no weapons.

Come to think of it, having SLAM data is not actually making me feel any better about this mission.

No weapons. A camera canister and a hologram projector, and in my humble opinion the first of those is fucking close to useless. And Central hasn’t even sent agents that specialize in stealth — except for me, and I don’t have my cloaking rig. I mean, I understand why — there is no way in hell we would have gotten that thing past security. But without it, I just feel, so … so …

… toothless.

Like a old man, like I’ve been left behind. By a world of technology. And yes, I’m fully aware that I’m dependent on technology to make me feel like I can still keep up. Look, I like that old cloaking rig. We’ve been through a lot together. I began my new life by liberating it from a corporate locker. It’s a good little piece of tech. I’m still not about to get my vertebrae replaced with newer synthetics, not matter how often Central offers.

And maybe it’s in my vertebrae, maybe it’s in my bones, but I’m getting this creeping suspicion that this mission may be not only unusual, but impossible.

But no — Central wouldn’t risk us like that. Agents are valuable assets if nothing else. And she wouldn’t risk three good ones — okay, two good ones and me, and I’m at least competent — just for some actor, some starlet …

But no, I shouldn’t dismiss … what’s her name again? — Esther Martins — like that. Shouldn’t I, of all people, know the value of a movie star?

And Invisible’s agents do come from a wide variety of backgrounds, from Internationale the former freedom fighter to Xu the former academic to Flamme the former auglete-slash-media personality. And it’s never been entirely clear what Central bases her recruitment policies on. Gut, I suppose. Though I’m not sure if she’d nod approvingly at me for saying that or give me a withering stare and say something about algorithms and precision. But it’s worked out so far. No one she’s recruited has sold us out to the corps. And if she thinks this mission is worth it, she must have a good reason.

I hope.

And then I look down and see that Xu has sent me a link. To a video.

_Esther Martins Prism The Istanbul Four leaked training vid!_

Only one exclamation mark. And 8.9 billion views.

I click. I watch. And it’s … not good.

It’s choppily edited and overlit and filmed by someone who obviously thought that moving the camera around a lot was key to capturing the action. Moving their _phone_ around a lot. Look, I’m not a snob about equipment. There were a bunch of good cinema vérité pieces made on phones in the 2030s. See, I’m capable of admitting there have been good things about the twenty-first century. But this is not one of — 

And then I remind myself to stop paying attention to the — nonexistent — cinematography and start paying attention to the woman. And then I understand. Well, sort of. 

She’s fast. She can scale walls. She knows how to fight. Well, it’s stage fighting — but there’s something there. Something like Nika has, the thing that you see in Nika’s face in the moment before she drives her volt disrupter into a guard’s spinal column. An intensity. Esther Martins is giving it her all. Even at a practice session in a gym. 

And there are moments — like there, at the peak of that jump — when she actually seems to be defying gravity. Which is a cliche, I know, but it’s also what it looks like she’s doing.

Okay, I can see how someone like that has the makings of an agent. But it’s still weird. Sending us out like this. Usually Central conducts multiple interviews over videochat, with her face obscured and her voice disguised, before prospective agents get anywhere near Invisible HQ.

_Well, if she doesn’t work out, Central can always just kill her_.

No — I don’t want to think that. It’s true, of course — it’s a possibility all we agents live with — but Central has never had to. Maybe she does have some special algorithms behind her recruiting, after all.

_And hey, she took a chance on me._

I was one of the first recruits to Invisible. Almost … eight years ago now? Yes. It was 2064 that I was fired, and then I spent a year, more or less, that I don’t really remember, until …

… Central rescued me. I’ve never denied that. Pulled me out of a gutter with a bottle in my hand. Metaphorically — though given a few more months, when my money ran out … 

Fucking corps. Fucking K&O. That was back when they were still calling themselves Kelfried & Odin International. Back when all the corps were still operating worldwide. Before they established the dedicated corporate zones and completely abandoned the pretense of puppet governments. Which has made the world considerably more stable — and no, that is not something I say around Internationale.

K&O. Europe. Australia. And a few other bits and pieces here and there. Sometimes those change. I didn’t say the world was completely stable.

But anyway, Central got me … okay, I won’t say _sober_. It’s not like things like last night don’t happen … sometimes. But I’m able to function as an agent. Hold down a job, if you will.

My tablet buzzes again. Another link. I crane my neck to look down the aisle at Xu, and he nods. It’s a link to _Climb Up!_ of all things.

_Not Just Another Clementine and Chris Story! The Truth Will Shock You!_

Great. 

But I click.

_Scandal runs like wildfire through the most exclusive parties, yes, even the ones you’ll never have a chance of attending in your life. But we’re here with the inside scoop, and let me tell you — it’s a war zone out there. Everywhere, the lines are drawn._ _Whose side are you on?_ _Did Chris go too far? Did Clementine get what she deserved? Was Shay-Shay the one who told him, or is that just another rumour?_

What? I started reading thinking it was going to be about Esther Martins, but I don’t see her name anywhere. And the article’s dated September 2071. Well after _The Istanbul Four_ came out and she disappeared from the scene.

_Now, we certainly don’t expect even our most dedicated readers and viewers to keep track of all the previous entanglements of Clementine, Chris, Tregan, Shay-Shay and all the rest — I’d draw you a diagram but it seems a certain someone here at the office has mistaken my stylus for a mascara applicator, yet again —_

How is this relevant? Xu has a weird sense of humour sometimes and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s making things a bit more oblique than necessary just because he wants to be able to say he made me read _Climb Up!_ But there must be more to it than that.

What was it Central said? _There’s this group, one we knew about already …_

And we have to rescue Esther Martins from something? Did she say that? I’m pretty sure she did.

Okay. I go back to reading. Read the whole thing. 

So, Clementine MacDonnell — who is a reality star, hence why I’ve never heard of her — cheated on Chris Whatshisname with Tregan Whatshisface — and somehow _Climb Up!_ can’t just say this without also running through every other relationship all three of them have ever had. The important thing is that apparently Chris knew it was happening for a while, and let it go on as part of a plan to — well, what he did to her was quite horrible, actually. Especially given that it’s not like he hasn’t — oh, hell, I’ll be actually caring about these people next.

I put the tablet down and stare at the window. Well, at what isn’t actually a window. They cover them with flexible screens that display a modified video feed of the scenery outside. Officially it’s because the train goes so fast that trying to look at the real landscape rushing by would make you sick. The display makes it look like you’re just going at normal speed — well, what would have been normal speed fifty years ago.

I look back at the tablet, scanning futilely, again, for Esther Martins’s name. And suddenly something clicks into place.

I think, carefully, and text Xu, _These women are all the same, right?_

_Yeah,_ he types back.

Okay. So. Esther is Clementine. Chris the Asshole is the corps. And Tregan is … that other group Central mentioned. She said they were small potatoes. So some minor player in what Internationale still persists in calling the Anti-Corporate Movement. With caps. You can hear she says it with caps.

Anyway, Esther’s been with them. And the corps knew. And now they’re going to do … something. Central said something about intercepted plans. And Invisible is … absolutely no-one in this story. Unless we’re some of the random celebs supporting Clementine … but that’s not the point.

The point is we’ve still been sent on an absolute fool’s errand, but …

_Well, that was five minutes of my life I’ll never get back._ _But I get it_.

I send the message, then lean out into the aisle and turn round to look at Xu. Meet his eyes, makes sure he knows that I know. He nods back.

The man in the seat in front of Xu stares at me, then at Xu, then just barely raises an eyebrow and goes back to his own tablet. There was a certain edge to that stare, a certain edge to how he’s ignoring us now — and I realize he thinks Xu and I were flirting. Well, he can think that if he wants. I’m bi but there’s nothing going on there. Never been anything between me and Xu — or anyone at Invisible for that matter.

_Guten Abend,_ _geehrte_ _Geschäftsreisende._ _In genau einer Minuten_ _erreichen wir den Bahnhof: München Hauptbahnhof._

The announcement comes in a female-sounding voice, not entirely unlike Incognita’s but more pleasant. Munich already.

And here comes the deceleration …

I meant between _me_ and anyone else at Invisible. In terms of other people, who aren’t me … yeah, sometimes things happen. Central doesn’t try to stop it. Yes, technically we’re all coworkers but we’re also all stuck living in one building together and most of the agents can’t even safely leave the building except on missions, so …

The train stops, and the voice once again makes sure everyone knows we’re in Munich. The screens display what looks like a real-time view of the inside of the train station. I lean over, carefully lift up one edge of the screen, and peek out. The view is almost exactly the same. Except that some of the ads are different. And there are about twice as many people. But they've got the angle exactly right. That really is some extraordinary technology.

Lucky us.

I can only see one K&O logo — in both the real and fake views — but then, they have been being relatively subtle with it recently. And only using the short form of their name.

And there — in the real view — is an ad for Aldi, with a smiling White woman and two children on it. It's really K&O, of course. But they kept some prominent names around as brands. Regionalization. Respecting local traditions. And if you don’t think discount supermarkets are a core value of the German-speaking region, then you’re … 

Okay, fine, it’s not like I can call myself an expert on the region when I only barely understand that ad.

_sparsam_ — I know that means _thrifty —_

Unlike most Invisible agents, I refuse to have a translator chip installed in my brain. 

_klüger_ — _more clever_

_Lebensgewohnheiten_ — um …

… and then the train starts moving and the ad blurs out of sight. Oh well.

Now there’s nothing to see except a high sound barrier wall, and the tops of some dark shiny buildings that look not entirely unlike something out of _Blade Runner_.

You know, I have a theory — that I don’t share with anyone, even Internationale — that the corps rebuilt things they way they did because that’s what people _expected_ the future to look like. On some level. The same reason I think the corps called their currency _credits_.

And I’m sure at this point I could go on with something philosophical about the human imagination, or the limits thereof, but my head hurts. I think that stim Central gave me is starting to wear off.

And I have to admit that looking out the window is making me a bit dizzy. I let the screen fall back into place and look at my tablet. Nothing new from Xu. A new executive is visible, or at least the be-suited arm of one, in the seat ahead of Shalem.

I try the window again. The screen shows a beautiful view of fields lit by the setting sun with a wind farm in the distance. I peek behind it and see an actually pretty nice view of fields lit by the setting sun with a wind farm in the distance. I hear a faint, very polite, cough behind me.

_“Entschuldigung, mein Herr, aber das wird hier nicht gestattet.”_

Before I can do more than look slightly confused she’s switched to English. “Please don’t touch the screens, sir.”

She’s a young woman, smiling, in a K&O uniform. Not the same one who checked our tickets when we came aboard, but very similar.

“It’s for the convenience of the other passengers,” she says, still smiling.

I pretend that means something, and say, “sorry.” I let go of the screen. 

She smiles even more and walks away, and the worst thing is that for just a moment I see gratitude in her eyes.

I spend the rest of the trip staring at the back of the seat in front of me. There’s an interactive screen there, just in case I didn’t want to use the one I brought along with me in tablet form, but I don’t touch it.

Stuttgart. Frankfurt. Cologne. Various executives get on and off. It feels like there’s only a few minutes between the train getting up to speed and decelerating again.

Okay, in Cologne I do glance at the window screens again. The train station is lit up in beautiful LEDs that look like neon.

In Brussels, I am completely certain that the stim has entirely worn off and I think about how Central almost certainly hasn’t been back to Brussels since 2057. I say “almost certainly” because none of us know exactly what she was doing between 2057 and 2064. Presumably hiding somewhere. Well, _obviously_ hiding somewhere, since she’s not dead.

And just as we pull out of Brussels I ask Xu for the credit chip and I press a button on the armrest, and when the same young woman from before appears I tell her I want to order a double whiskey. She smiles and touches the screen in front of me and I realize I could have ordered from there, but it doesn’t matter and she guides me through the process with the smoothness of someone who’s dealt with a lot of old executives who don’t understand technology. I unashamedly order the cheapest whiskey on the menu. Which is still a ridiculous price, of course. But hey, we have 10,000 credits.

“Do you really think that’s a good idea?” asks Shalem as soon as she leaves. Out loud. He’s not even trying to whisper.

“Hey, you’re not the one who’s a functional alcoholic here,” I say, equally loudly. I get a laugh from the executives around us.

Shalem says nothing more but glares at me until she comes back with the whiskey. I take a sip and glare back. Finally he turns away to his own window screen.

Look, Shalem, I know you saw some shit in the Resource Wars, but I really think you just don’t have what it takes to appreciate the true _depths_ of the cynicism that my alcoholism comes from. I don’t think any of my fellow Invisible agents do.

And if you really want to get cynical, you ask yourself if it was ever any different. When Central was in Brussels.

And Internationale has some way of saying that no, it wasn’t, but then somehow turning that into hope, but I can’t remember exactly how. Can’t remember what she said. I admit that a lot of the time I don’t really listen.

This is in fact a pretty good whiskey.

And I can’t even properly enjoy it because we’re fast approaching London, and it also occurs to me that I need to find a toilet. Which I do, without even asking the young lady. It’s free for us executives, of course. See, Shalem, I can take care of myself. I’m not about to ruin the mission by getting arrested for pissing on the street. But Shalem just gives me another disapproving look, as though he can’t hear my internal monologue _at all_.

I get back to my seat just in time to see the screens fill with images of a street of burned-out, bombed-looking buildings. For a moment I’m stunned, wondering if the feed has been hijacked. But then I see the white lettering superimposed discreetly at the bottom.

_Former site of anti-corporate terrorist cell. Pacified December 19, 2072._

Of course. The people on this train are people who will see that as a comfort.

I do peek behind the screen briefly, but it’s too late — we’ve already moved on. I wanted to see if the words were there in real life. It wouldn’t have surprised me if they’d done something with a hologram. Or, y’know, just a sign or something.

_Good evening, distinguished business travellers_. _In exactly one minute we will reach our final destination: London, St. Pancras station._

In Brussels, that voice spoke in both French and Flemish. Now it’s in English, in an accent that I can tell is meant to sound posh but not too posh.

And now we’re in a tunnel, and the screens are completely honest that what they’re showing isn’t real. Nature scenes, for our convenience. Presumably did that in the Chunnel too, but I was occupied.

_If you are making a connection, both our executive travel app and our delighted staff …_

I stop listening. Until I hear Shalem speaking.

“We’re here,” he says. “Get up.”


	2. Chapter 2

Shalem actually tries to hold onto my coat sleeve as we come out of the Aldgate tube station. I pull my arm away.

Okay, the crowd is pretty intense — of course we had to be trying to get around London during rush hour — though who even has a job that ends at five or six now anyway? — and — _ow_ …

Okay, possibly that well-dressed man just there — who didn’t even give me a passive-aggressive _sorry_ —

“Over here,” calls Xu, waving. We follow him across the street and now there’s a bit more breathing room.

“That’s the building,” he says, pointing up at … something very strange.

“They call it the Cactus.” He’s either reading from his tablet or pretending to. “Unofficially.”

It’s not obviously spiky, but I suppose that’s as good a name as any for something that looks like it was built by taking the floorplans for about fifty different — and very irregular — buildings and stacking them on top of each other. And of course it’s in black glass.

“There’s an art gallery on the ground floor.”

Art gallery. I assume he mentioned that for a reason.

“But right now we need to go —” Xu looks at his tablet again, then points, “— that way. Leadenhall Market.”

“Why?” I ask.

“Because you need to eat something,” says Shalem.

I sigh. “I’m _fine_.” 

Seriously, I barely even felt that whiskey.

“And we have a while to wait,” says Xu. “So now would be a great time to act like tourists.”

Did he actually just say that out loud? But no one around us gave any indication they heard, and no one even looks at us as we walk down the street. Of course there are cameras all around us, and bugs, though I can’t see any of them — but we can’t do anything about that. Just act like tourists, like Xu said. And hope that by the time anyone behind the cameras — or any _thing_ behind the cameras — puts two and two together, we’re well away from London.

It still would be nice if I knew _all_ of the plan.

As we walk I see more skyscrapers — most of them famous ones from the early twenty-first or late twentieth century. Built back then to look like the _future_. They loom over genuinely old stone and a few boring things that look like they’ve survived from even earlier in the twentieth century. But of course everyone knows that London struck a bunch of deals that left it more or less undamaged by the Resource Wars. And K &O cares about heritage.

Yeah, there’s the Gherkin, and the Scalpel, and whatever they call those other especially weird ones. I can’t remember.

You know, even though I knew where we were going — Xu showed us a map on his tablet back at St. Pancras — it didn’t hit me until right now that we’d be doing this mission right in the heart of the City of London. The financial heart.

I wonder what Banks would think. Jolie “Banks” Murphy. Or Maria “Internationale” Valdés, for that matter. But no — Banks is the one that you don’t bring up London around. Or Dublin. Mostly Dublin. But I don’t think Internationale has ever said anything about London one way or the other. Not that I’d necessarily remember. And come to think of it, I don’t know if I’ve ever heard Internationale say anything about banks, with a small b. Capital, on the other hand … 

But hey, about Banks with a capital B, I don’t need to wonder. I already know what her response to corporate-controlled financial institutions was. Which was to siphon a whole lot of money from them. But that was a few years ago, and they have much stronger cryptography now — I don’t even pretend to understand how, but they do.

Well, anyway, we have a mission to do. And it’s probably a good thing Internationale is in Jakarta. 

Though she is the one who’s always going on about how the guards are just doing their jobs and how we should avoid casualties if at all possible, so …

Xu stops. We’ve turned into a side street and there’s some kind of glass wall in front of us. Well, I say glass, but there’s just the faintest suggestion from the way the light hits it that it’s not something you could break easily. Also there are visible cameras.

“Oh, I see,” says Xu. “We have to pay to get into these streets.”

He walks over to a tiny speaker, embedded in the glass, that I hadn’t noticed, and asks, “Excuse me, will this give us access to the Marks & Spencer?”

I can’t make out the answer from where I’m standing but Xu nods in satisfaction. He waves the credit chip in the air and presses a few virtual buttons on the holographic screen that suddenly manifests in front of the glass.

“Why the hell do you care about Marks & Spencer?” I ask. Another name that K&O kept around.

“I’ve never been in one before,” says Xu. “Also they have sandwiches.”

Okay. Whatever. A door slides open in the glass and I follow Xu and Shalem through.

It’s only then that I notice that there’s a human on the other side who was watching us interact with the machine. His grey uniform blends in with the wall behind him and he was standing in shadow. I can tell that he knows that we’ve only just seen him and he’s happy about that fact, but since we’ve paid he gives us something approximating a smile as we go by.

We find the Marks & Spencer, after stopping a few times to pretend to take pictures. Xu is really taking this tourist act seriously. Which is good, but …

But out of everything I’ve done on missions — some of which I’d rather not think about — none of it prepared me for a mission that involves wandering around a department store with Raymond “Shalem 11” Malik of all people. And meanwhile Dr. Tony Xu disappears into the housewares section for a while and returns with a travel-sized electric kettle. At this point I don’t even ask.

Then we pay and get out of there with our sandwiches and our kettle, and — on Xu’s suggestion — go into Leadenhall Market to eat the sandwiches. And it’s a beautiful building filled with mostly beautiful people and organic produce and real meat that costs more than that whiskey on the train and we find a table to sit at with a view of the Lloyd’s building. Which is still called that for the usual reasons of tradition. And the sandwiches are in fact really good. Fresh tomato.

“So, while we’re here, Mr. Scientist,” says Shalem after a few mouthfuls, “Can you tell us how we’re getting back?”

“We’re renting a car,” says Xu cheerfully.

Okay. “Renting.” Though that doesn’t explain what we’re going to do about the cameras, or the GPS tracking, or just the whole fucking corporate apparatus everywhere …

Shalem gives me a look, and in a first for this mission, it’s not one of annoyance. It’s a look that …

… that, unlike anything I’ve ever seen from Shalem before, conveys _we’re in this together_.

“It’ll work out,” says Xu, and for a moment he’s sharing in that look too.

“Now,” he adds, “does anyone have any normal conversation they wish to engage in?” 

Shalem gives him a different kind of look. One that says _don’t take it too far._

But no-one at the other tables or walking through the market is paying any attention to us. Of course not. We paid money, so we have a right to be here. That’s what really matters, here and in the train — not all our attempts at clever communication.

Though there is still such a thing as being foolhardy. But anyway, while we’re here …

“As a matter of fact, yes,” I say to Xu. “Did you really just happen to have a relevant _Climb Up!_ article at your fingertips?”

“My mind can be very like an index.”

“You mean you remember everything you’ve ever read?”

“Most of the time, yes,” he replies with something very like a smirk, and I know I’ve just gotten him to admit that he reads _Climb Up!_ but it doesn’t matter because _he doesn’t care_.

“Anything else?” He pokes at his tablet. “Do either of you want to know anything touristy about London? Any interesting facts about the British East India Company?”

“Is that relevant?” asks Shalem.

“Only in an exceedingly general sense.” 

“Then no,” says Shalem, and we all go back to eating.

Then, for some reason, Xu gets his kettle out of the box and starts fiddling around with it between bites. Mostly keeping it under the table. At one point he presses a button on his arm augment, detaches something small and metal from the cavity inside, and incorporates it into his fiddling. I am beginning to suspect this is not just random tinkering.

A few people do notice _that_ , but they show no sign of informing the security who are wandering through periodically. It seems the eccentric scientist act is carrying the day.

None of us eat the papers the sandwiches came wrapped in. They’re edible — the corps’ way of showing they _care —_ but they don’t taste all that good. And anyone who’d be grateful for them is nowhere within a radius of half a kilometer at least.

Internationale has strong opinions about wasting food. But she’s not here.

So we put the papers in the bin.

“Are we done here?” asks Shalem, looking pointedly at both Xu and the kettle.

“Let me see … yes.” Xu slides the kettle back into its box. “But I’d like to find a charging station. After that, we can head to the art gallery. We’ll still have to wait, but we may as well do it there.”

“Great,” says Shalem. “Let’s do that.”

He sounds more sarcastic now than calm. I wonder if that’s a deliberate substitution.

We do find a public charging station nearby, and Xu does whatever it is he’s doing — which seems to involve leaving the kettle in the box while it charges but peeking in nervously every few seconds — without any problems. We pay through the nose for the power, though. They deliberately overcharge at these public stations, to discourage people using electricity for unauthorized purposes.

“Can you charge … um … your hard drive?” Shalem asks. I’d almost forgotten about Incognita. Oh, sorry, Incognita Beta.

“No,” says Xu. “The boss wouldn’t like that.”

We leave it at that.

Then we walk back the way we first came, with the skyscrapers towering over us in brilliant blue-white. There’s so much light around that I hadn’t noticed, until now, that it’s long past nightfall. I’m not sure if I’m actually feeling cold or if the light just looks cold, but I put my coat collar up.

I can’t remember if this winter has been colder or warmer than “normal”. I think it was warmer. According to that thing I read. Which was corp news, but they’re generally pretty trustworthy about the basic facts of climate change because it’s in their interests to mitigate it. Even Internationale doesn’t dispute that.

“Wait, is that an FTM logo?” asks Shalem, pointing up at … what is unmistakably our building. Our target building. The Cactus.

“Oh, yes,” says Xu. “It’s a joint exhibit.”

There they are, K&O’s spiky thing glowing white and FTM’s letters and arrow glowing magenta. Above the words _Art Across Continents_.

“Oh, yeah,” says Shalem. “I read about that.”

So did I, now that I think of it. FTM lending a bunch of artworks they own to K&O for a joint exhibit. Something something unprecedented gesture of cooperation and … some other positive words.

They’re still competing though. They won’t let you forget that. And they’ve still got soldiers fighting each other in Panama. But that’s one tiny part of the world and no reason for us to not enjoy … for the rich not to enjoy …

“So we just go in there and … mingle?” Shalem asks, sparing me from finishing my thought.

“For a while, yes,” says Xu. “I’ll let you know if, er, anything changes.”

“Good,” says Shalem, sounding confident again. “I’m good at mingling.”

I’m not, but I am good at keeping my head down. So once we’re inside — after having paid again, of course — I pick an out-of-the-way artwork and stare at it determinedly, with my hat as far over my face as is socially acceptable and my shoulders slumped.

It’s a Rothko. I stare at fuzzy purple color fields for a while, then move onto the painting next to it. Which is a bucolic landscape by — I lean in to look at the plaque — yes, Constable.

I take a longer look around the room. Yeah, the whole exhibit is like that: a mix of European landscape paintings, mostly nineteenth-century I think, and mid-twentieth century abstract expressionism. Lined up on the walls with absolutely no sense of context or even style.

This isn’t an exhibit. This is K&O and FTM affirming their latest brand image directions.

Look, just because my own tastes are highly specific doesn’t mean I know nothing about the rest of the past. Or that I can’t see that this art deserves better than this.

I stare at a stabile with curvy legs that reminds me vaguely of a drone. Ha, maybe Sankaku is represented in this exhibit after all.

Yeah, not likely.

Time goes by. I eat something small and free off of a toothpick. I stare at more color. Purple and blue. Blue and orange. Red and gold. Red and black. Red on red …

_Decker, I am not the slightest bit concerned with what people paint. If you want me to talk about how the art market is a perfect and illustrative example of the inflation of asset values creating wealth devoid of connection to fulfilling the needs of humanity, we can do that after the mission. But right now, shut up._

Ugh, my mind was wandering. Internationale. A few months ago. In hindsight, the middle of a mission to an FTM server farm may not have been the best time and place to needle her.

“Excuse me? Sir? Please don’t touch that.”

It’s a high-pitched voice, slightly nervous, and as I turn around I’m not at all surprised by what I see. Xu is backing away from a security console. A light brown-skinned woman in a magenta skirt and white blouse is backing away slightly from Xu.

I walk over as quickly as I can, but Xu is already putting on an excellent show of being both surprised and contrite. “Oh, do forgive me. The security on it was so poor that I simply assumed it was meant as an interactive exhibit.”

She stares at him blankly, then looks towards the security guard in the corner. Who isn’t paying attention at all — wow, even on my worst days I wouldn’t have let someone that badly trained interact with the public — but he’s just civilian-level — and anyway, Decker, remember who you’re working for now.

I tap Xu’s arm. “Let’s go, _Professor_.”

“Oh, very well.” Xu follows me, leaving the young woman still standing looking uncertain. I feel sorry for her, but this isn’t the time.

Shalem joins us. “Was that really necessary?” he hisses at Xu as soon as we’re out of the gallery room.

“Yes,” says Xu, and there’s a change in his tone and he’s walking faster now, with a sense of purpose, and both Shalem and I get it at the same time. We follow him.

He walks across the lobby and through a set of double doors that lead to another gallery room. One that’s completely empty. The greeters in the lobby are only just looking round as the doors shut behind us. Then Xu sprints, across the empty room to another door. A plain grey one. The little light on its passcard reader is glowing green where I would have expected red. I hear footsteps coming after us, but not urgently, and we’re through the door and running after Xu down a hallway, and then another hallway, and through another door that’s unaccountably unlocked for us. But clicks locked behind us. Another hall, then into an elevator. Xu enters something on the keypad and the door closes, but he doesn’t select a floor.

Everything is silent.

“Okay,” whispers Xu. “I deactivated the bugs and cameras in this part of the building. I couldn’t do anything about the higher-security areas. But this elevator will get us to —”

“Then why are we whispering?” interrupts Shalem.

“Because I shut off _the bugs_ but I can’t assume this shaft is soundproof,” Xu whispers back. Shalem looks chagrined.

“Anyway, this elevator will take us to a floor just below the one we need. Unfortunately we’ll need to find another elevator from there. And for the high-security areas, I don’t have SLAM data.”

“And that’s where Es — the target is?” I ask.

“Yes. Now give me your tablets and I’ll get them booted _properly_.”

We do so. And he takes out the hard drive containing Incognita Beta and connects it to his own tablet with a rigid connector.

“There,” he says with satisfaction. “Now, Shalem, I think you should have this.” 

He takes the kettle out of the box. Now I can see that it’s been modified … quite a lot, though it’s still basically kettle-shaped.

“I’ve turned this into something like a volt disrupter,” he whispers with unmistakeable pride. “It should even be able to pierce at least two levels of armor. Unfortunately, it is single-use only.”

“You did that with a kettle from Marks and Spencer?” Shalem whispers.

“Yes. I don’t think many people could have done it. There’s a reason the corps don’t try to restrict kettles.”

Shalem raises his eyebrows.

“However,” Xu continues, “it’s not without some risks, although … well, I’m almost certain it will work as I intend …”

“Let me guess,” I whisper. “There’s a 30% chance it won’t work, a 10% chance it’ll kill the guard instead of incapacitating them, and a 5% chance it’ll kill us all?”

“Well, I don’t have exact percentages, since I haven’t been able to run tests, but —”

“I’m fine with Shalem having it,” I say.

“So am I,” says Shalem, without even looking at me. “I’ve killed people with stranger things, and I stopped being afraid of dying long ago.”

In the ensuing silence, Xu digs in his bag again. “I think Decker should have the hologram projector.” He holds it out to me. “You have the most experience with similar tech. I’ll keep the camera canister, unless anyone has any objections.”

Shalem shrugs.

“No,” I say, taking the projector.

“Excellent —”

“— but I really would like more info before we go in, if there’s time. Where are we taking Esther, for one thing? And what exactly are the dangers here?”

“Right,” whispers Xu. “First, the security. It’ll be equivalent to level four, by our measures.”

Great. _Extremely Guarded. Most guards at this facility will have elite training and equipment. Use extreme caution._

And we’re doing this without weapons.

“It’s a private corporate event,” Xu continues. “Esther Martins is working with a group called Lowercase, trying to infiltrate. We don’t know all the details. What matters is that the corps got the drop on their plans, and have set things up to capture Esther in the act.”

I nod. So does Shalem. It is like I thought, more or less. I’ve never heard of Lowercase, but there are a lot of little groups out there.

“We’re taking her to Cyro’s. Central will have sent the credits to him by now.”

Cyro. Okay. That’s a known name. I don’t know much about him, but Invisible sometimes does business with him. I get the impression he’s not Central’s favourite person to work with, but —

“I have coordinates for a location not too far from here,” Xu continues. “There’s a teleporter there that will take us to Cyro’s. I transferred them to your tablets as well. And the security codes. I don’t have time to explain everything, but in the extremely unlikely event that I get killed here, you should be able to figure things out.”

“Okay. But how do we get her out of this building?” asks Shalem. “And through the heart of London to this special location?”

“Um,” — Xu grimaces — “we still do have to improvise. I have some ideas — if I can get some time with a console on the high-security floors —”

“Fine,” interrupts Shalem, crossing his arms. “Let’s make this work.”

Xu nods. “One more thing.” He holds out his tablet. “This is what the target looks like. Though she’s using a holorig, so she may look different.”

What? I knew she used one in _The Istanbul Four_ — obviously — but I hadn’t thought —

“We’re trying to rescue someone,” I whisper, “and we can’t even be sure what she looks like?”

“Well, she’ll probably still be Black,” Xu whispers back. “And young.”

“How do you know that?”

“We have some intel about cons she’s been on with Lowercase in the past. What she usually looks like.”

“And you can see through those holorigs from close up in real life,” adds Shalem.

“I know that,” I hiss. Seriously, _I’m_ the cinema expert here.

Which is irrelevant. Focus, Decker.

“Apparently it has worked at fairly close quarters before,” Xu adds, scrolling on his tablet. “Which is probably why she —”

“Got it,” I interrupt. “Look, I know private corporate events. Odds are really good that if we see a woman, it’s her.”

“Unless they’ve hired models,” says Shalem. “I know private corporate events too.”

“Xu, is that everything?” I ask.

“Almost,” says Xu. “Does everyone know their hand signals?”

Oh, those.

“Yes,” says Shalem.

I nod as well, hoping I’m not rusty.

We learn some very basic modified sign language as part of our Invisible training, in case the Operator interface breaks down. Which it never has, but … well, Central is good at thinking of everything.

_Wait — go — hack that device_ … okay, yeah, I remember.

“Well then,” says Xu, “Let’s do this.”

He goes to tap the elevator keypad — then pauses. “One more thing. We can’t fully predict how the other players involved here will act. So be careful.”

“Like we weren’t already,” says Shalem, but the remark falls into silence. Xu has activated the elevator. We’re going up. Fourth floor … fifth floor … a long way to go yet. It feels very slow.

I hold Esther Martins’s face in my mind, for all the good it’ll do me.

Cloaking rigs and holorigs both use the same basic technology. They use your skin as a screen.

Which is kind of weird, now that I think about it. Especially in the case of holorigs.

Turning your face into someone else’s. Your whole body, even. It’s one thing to go invisible, but …

My thoughts drift off, and I let them. I need my mind clear.

 

* * *

 

The elevator door opens onto yet more paintings. Well, only a few — three landscapes and one huge portrait of what’s-his-fucking-name Kelfried. Vilmar. Who was actually a USian with no more Norwegian heritage than me until he made up a fake family name and history when his tech company bought out several European companies in the late 2020s.

More importantly, the vestibule is unguarded. And there’s a console.

Xu hurries over to it and plugs in his tablet. He looks briefly at the console screen and gives us a thumbs-up.

Okay. We’re in. Incognita Beta is in.

Shalem hurries across to the door, craning his neck to be sure he’s got all the sightlines around the large square pillars in the corners. I do the same, just in case. Yes, just the one door. Shalem scouts that too, peeking through the narrow translucent strips that line the edge of the door and criss-cross the centre. They’re actually there for the benefit of the guards, but they’ve been invaluable to us on more than one mission.

Shalem’s already through the door, so the next room must be unguarded too. Yeah — I follow — nothing. Just a bench and two large ornamental plants.

But at the next door, Shalem stops. Holds out his hand for caution, then beckons me over. I peek.

Yeah, that’s a guard.

_Armor?_ Shalem mouths silently.

I nod and hold up two fingers.

Normally the Operator interface would instantly analyze the guard and tell us the armor rating, but we don’t have that. Luckily I’m here. And I know K&O heavy security level two armor when I see it.

I can also see two sets of bunkbeds — in the middle of the room with no other furniture, but that’s K&O HR for you — and three doors. None of which we can get to without the guard seeing us. And two large posters with the damn K&O logo on them. Just in case we forgot where we are.

Xu has caught up with us and is crouched beside Shalem.

Shalem makes the hand signal for _wait._

We wait, for at least fifteen seconds.

The guard isn’t moving. He’s stationary.

And if we open the door he’ll see and come and investigate.

This is a problem.

Is there some way we can use the hologram projector? Or …

Shalem opens the door.

“Hey, what was that?”

Okay, now we’ve got maybe seven seconds before the guard gets here. And in the corner of the room I couldn’t see before, there’s an automated turret. Covering most of the room.

Shalem points at Xu, urgently. Then at his arm. Then through the door, even more urgently …

Okay, I get it. Xu is going to …

Shalem points at me, then ducks through the door after Xu. I follow.

And the guard is still walking round the bunkbeds.

“What the —?”

He saw us — saw _something_ — but what he saw was on the other side of the door. He’ll go through it and look there. We really are very good at moving stealthily — you forget how naturally it comes until you’re right in the middle of a mission and the guards seem to move so slowly —

— and Xu uses the capacitor in his arm to EMP the power supply for the turret. Right, Shalem. I could have thought of this plan.

And now we’re all crouching behind a large metal screen at the head of the bunkbeds. Directly in front of the turret. The screen isn’t entirely opaque, but should keep the guard from seeing us if he glances this way. 

But we need to keep moving, and the EMP will have only knocked the turret out for twelve seconds, and when it reboots —

Xu taps his tablet, then points to the turret power supply and makes a scuttling motion with his fingers like the legs of an insect. He’s put a Parasite program on it. But we still need to move …

“Investigating area. Hmm, nothing.”

I know the guards are trained to say that to give intruders a false sense of security. In some situations. But sometimes the doors do malfunction and open on their own. And he got only the faintest glimpse of motion when we moved. Could have been a glitch in his tactical overlay. Or just his old-fashioned eyes playing tricks on him.

Shalem’s moving again. Towards a nearby door. There are four of them in the room, I can see now, plus the one we came in by. Two in the corner close to us, two on the far wall. And there’s a console there, if we can get to it.

I take the other door in the corner. Peek. No guards. Looks like an executive terminal room. Shalem signals that he’s found a room with a guard elevator. Useless to us. Wired to only accept guards’ and authorized executives’ gene codes. It gets really ugly if you try to get around that. Even Incognita, at full strength, can’t do it.

And Shalem signs that there’s no more doors in there. I open my door to get a better view — and hear the guard’s footsteps turning round. I duck inside. And Xu … Xu is still there, behind the screen. He begins to move, but then a light flashes on the turret. He freezes.

Shalem and I close our doors just in time, and watch as — 

And it’s okay. It’s actually okay. Turrets only detect movement. If you’re standing in front of one completely still, it won’t fire.

And it looks like the guard is returning to his former position, where he won’t see Xu. And I didn’t hear him call anything in.

So as long as Xu doesn’t move …

… we just have to wait until Parasite drills through all the firewalls on that power supply. That’s the disadvantage with Parasite. Extremely power-efficient, but slow.

And without Operator, Xu is the only one who knows how many firewalls were on it in the first place.

I use the time to take another good look round the room I’m in, just in case. No, no other doors. Just a bunch of computers — unfortunately not the kind that are of any use to us — and a small pond with placidly swimming koi. That’s how you call tell it’s a real fancy office.

And through the door panels, I can at least get a really good view of the main room. And the guard has indeed resumed a stationary position. Shalem and I can get out of the rooms we’re in now without him seeing us. Now, getting to the doors on the other side of the room … we need a new plan.

We wait. Xu stands still. At least more twenty seconds go by.

Okay. Light went out on the turret. Xu is moving. Still alive. Shalem opens his door and slips out behind the guard. 

And a few seconds later we’re all crouched low in the space between the bunkbeds and the wall. On the same side of the room as we first came in. So in some sense we did all that just to get through a door …

Xu looks at his tablet, then makes the sign for _alarm_ and holds up one finger. He means that the internal security alarm has already risen to level one. That’s not too bad. Normal, expected. Even full-strength Incognita can’t counter every security system. And the fact that the corp hasn’t detected anything else must mean that Beta has a lot of Incognita’s capabilities.

Well, obviously. Central wouldn’t have sent us here with something that would give us away immediately.

But we need to explore the rest of this floor as fast as possible. We need that guard to not be facing those two doors.

Shalem looks significantly at the turret. Yes … that is an option. 

If we hack the turret itself and then turn the power supply back on, the turret’s automatic threat detection will identify the guard, rather than us, as the intruder. If the guard moves, that is. Which can be arranged …

Xu shakes his head at Shalem. I’m not too keen on the idea either. For one thing, killing guards raises the alarm even faster. And makes noise. We know there are other guards here — at level four security, that’s a given — and the last thing we need is more rushing in.

And of course there is the kettle, but …

Shalem points to the door we came in by. The guard left it open. Shalem makes the sign for opening and closing — and I understand his plan. So does Xu, I can tell. If we close the door, the guard will come over to investigate again. And while he’s doing that we can go back around behind the screen and the other side of the bunkbeds, past where he was standing —

— but no — I’m not sure that gives us enough time to get though those other doors, especially since we don’t know what’s on the other side of them — guards or anything we need to hack — Internationale’s wireless scanner would in fact be really useful right now — but that’s pointless, she’s not here —

Wait. Wait. I hold up my hand for Shalem to wait. He nods, though he looks impatient.

The guard isn’t actually looking directly at the doors. And looking at the angle of his head — there, if I move right _now_ , while he’s looking to the side —

— move to the door, peek — a camera — elevator! — open the door — and he’s seen me, he’s seen _something_ , but I’m already between the two bunkbeds, pressing myself tight into the corner by the screen and as low to the ground as possible —

“Did you see that?”

If he’s talking to any other guards, there’s no answer.

Okay, he’s walking, he’s walking — he hasn’t seen me. Hasn’t seen Shalem or Xu either.

“Huh, must be imagining things.”

Really? Really? It’s hard to believe that’s not a bluff. But if he really knew where I was he’d be aiming a gun at me, and he’s not, so … 

I dare to move slightly so I can get a better view.

He’s standing still now. Staring directly at the door we need to get through.

The door with the elevator we need on the other side of it. Which only hits me just now. I’ve found it. Do Shalem and Xu know? No, they wouldn’t have been able to see it from where they are, even with the door open.

Split-second decision, opening that door, but I think I’ve just given us a way out.

Well, not really out. A way to the next floor, where the actual mission proper begins. Where we have a holovid actor to rescue. But, y’know, bridges, and crossing them once we come to them.

And thanks to Incognita Beta, they won’t be able to detect our destination floor, so we won’t have to worry about guards from this floor pursuing us. For a few minutes, anyway. Hopefully.

I peek again, and the guard’s back is still to me. I dash back to Shalem and Xu. Shalem does not look happy with me. But I make the sign for _elevator_ and point to the door. And the sign for _all clear_. There were no guards in there. Xu nods and makes the scuttling-finger _Parasite_ gesture. Okay, he’s put one on the camera, which he can see from here. Though I’m not sure if that will actually make that much difference. My plan is for us to just run through the open door to the elevator as soon as the guard looks away again. But the less that detects us the better.

The guard is still facing the door. We wait.

Xu holds up two fingers. Alarm level two. We wait some more.

I gesture again, making sure the plan is clear to Shalem and Xu. They nod. They’re on board. We can do this. Thanks to that guard’s touching faith in the power of the human imagination, we can do this.

Xu signs _camera_ and _all clear_ , meaning that Parasite has done its work. And still we wait.

Finally. The guard turns around and walks back to his previous position, where he doesn’t seem to be paying any closer attention than before. In fact, he’s getting his phone out. Which might be to send some kind of alert, but —

_Now_. Shalem makes the signal and we run, not caring if we make noise.

“Hey!”

“I heard something!”

Okay, there were other guards nearby. At least two of them. And they’re all running. But it doesn’t matter, because we’re in the elevator, and Xu presses the button. The doors close. No need to use Incognita Beta for that, like we usually do to control beaming “elevators”. We’re just three normal passengers who happen to be travelling, entirely corporeally, between floors in this fine corporate building —

The doors open. Shit, no time to relax. We rush out. And immediately I’m disoriented because it was the doors on the other side of the elevator.

Okay. I get my bearings. This is a room shaped like a blocky W, and we’ve emerged in the centre part of it. Shalem is checking the far corner. He signals that there’s nothing there. We hurry over to the one door, and —

— well. That’s lucky.

I see a boardroom table. And on the far wall, a long way across the room, a matching wooden desk. And in the middle of the room — along with a spiky abstract sculpture hanging from the ceiling — are two people who look like —

— but we need a better view. Shalem opens the door, peeks again, and slips out. We follow.

Well, there’s a guard. He hasn’t seen us, but that’s only because he has a wall to his right. A wall that comes partway across the room, dividing it into a bigger and smaller half. In the smaller half is the boardroom table we’re all hiding behind. In the bigger half is the executive deck, and two high-backed chairs in front of it, and lots of other furniture — couches and decorative half-columns and planters and a sideboard — and another door — and two of those creepy statues of hooded figures that more than one executive is apparently fond of. I’ve seen them before.

But the important thing is that next to the high-backed chairs there’s a chessboard and two lower, backless seats. And two people sitting in them. One’s a well-dressed man who looks like an executive. White. Fairly young. The other is a young Black woman and what clothes she has on look like purple silk.

Shalem and Xu and I all look at each other. And nod. This is amazing luck but now is not the time to dwell on that.

But first we have to deal with that guard. Maybe we aren’t so lucky. I recognize that glowing visor he has over his eyes. Spec Ops. 180 degree vision. That is, 180 degrees of completely binocular vision that he’s aware of at all times. Nothing is peripheral, and he won’t be dependent on his eyes’ saccades like a normal human. So there’s no sneaking up on him from the side, and he’s very hard to distract without getting his full attention and getting shot.

Well, hard to get his full attention visually. Sound, on the other hand, is very much an option. But then …

Shalem gestures with the kettle and raises his eyebrows in a question. Xu purses his lips. I know we’re all thinking the same thing. If we use it on the guard, we can’t use it on the executive. But executives are almost never armed. He’ll probably run away as soon as he sees us. But if he manages to alert other guards …

Xu nods at Shalem. They look at me. I nod too. I really don’t see any better plan. Despite the slight possibility that the kettle will kill us all.

_The human brain is remarkably ill-equipped to evaluate risk in the environment humans have built._

What? _What?_ That sounded like Incognita.

_Xu_ , I mouth, _Xu_. I get his attention and point to the hard drive. He looks at me in puzzlement. 

I … how can I get this across? We don’t have signs for _Are you hearing our AI in your head too?_ And it seems pretty clear that he isn’t. I wave my hands. _Never mind_.

Maybe I just imagined it. I’ve never had aural hallucinations before, not even during withdrawal, but maybe I’m starting now.

Okay. While I was hearing things, Shalem and Xu have worked out the details. And now they’re moving. They creep round the desk and into position on the opposite side of the wall from the guard. Xu looks at Shalem. Shalem nods, ready to ambush, holding the kettle like it’s a neural disruptor. 

Xu runs. Makes his footfalls obvious, doing the exact opposite of what we normally do. Ducks back behind the table.

Good. The guard heard but the executive didn’t. And the guard doesn’t say anything. Just starts walking with quick, professional steps.

I crouch where I am, down by the legs of a boardroom chair, feeling awfully exposed as he rounds the corner— these spec ops always make me nervous, even though I know exactly how their line of sight works and he can’t see me.

There’s a shower of sparks. For a moment I can’t even tell what’s happened. But then the glowing spots in front of my eyes fade and … it worked. The guard is unconscious. The kettle looks burnt and definitely not usable again, but we’re all alive. Shalem is pinning the guard to the floor and pressing down on the port at the back of his neck. An handy little exploitable feature of enhanced troops, one the corps haven’t found a way around. Of course, they can do the same thing to us. But right now there’s no sign of that being an imminent danger.

And somehow the executive and the woman didn’t notice. Or if she did she isn’t showing it. And he seems to be really into his chess game.

Shalem, still pinning, searches the guard’s pockets. Credit chip. Nothing we can use. Not even a security passcard.

They beckon me over, and Xu takes the risk of whispering. “We may be able to get out the same way we came in.”

Shalem nods and whispers, “Xu, scout the elevator again. Decker, get over there and get her attention.”

I nod and obey, still putting some effort into stealth even though the two by the chessboard have been oblivious so far. First to that half pillar, then —

— I don’t want her to see me just yet, since I don’t know how she’ll react — I don’t want him to turn round —

— there, she’s looking at the board —

I make my move, noticing as I do so that there’s a decanter of whiskey on the sideboard. But I lose only a fraction of a second noticing that, and then I’m safe. Lying flat on the floor behind the high-backed chairs, with them playing chess less than a meter from me. 

And it appears they’re playing strip chess. Or possibly just normal chess and she’s in her underwear because why not. Well, I say underwear but the top is really more like a camisole. Makes sense if she’s using a holorig. They fit round the waist like cloaking rigs do.

“Your move,” the man says.

“You haven’t touched your drink. I thought we agreed you’d be drinking to make this even.”

He laughs, and it’s not like I was really inclined to like him but now I’m sure I don’t. “Take your move first,” he says.

Yes, my hands are steady enough. I’m actually surprised how steady they are.

I wiggle out, carefully, and pick his pocket. Successfully. 

The bad news is, still no passcard. The good news is, I’m pretty sure he’s not armed.

The neutral news is, he had a medgel in there, which I pocket. It’ll only be useful if something goes horribly wrong, but …

_Checkmate in three moves_.

Incognita’s voice startles me so much that I almost gasp. But I don’t. I count my breaths, trying to get a hold of myself.

_I am only saying that because it’s obvious from the state of the board. I assure you, brute-forcing chess holds no interest for me._

“Incognita?” I think the name, not say it, but think it very clearly in the way you do when you’re communicating in the Operator interface.

_And he knows he’s going to win, but hasn’t declared yet._

“Incognita? Beta?”

_Incognita will do fine. Things have changed._

I need to move. Shalem and Xu will be wondering why nothing is happening.

“Incognita, I can’t talk to you right now.”

I get up to my knees and crawl. Very carefully, because the medgel syringe is awkward in my pocket. They’re heavy because they contain a fairly large quantity of plasma. The blood kind, not the weapon kind. And also artificial blood cells and nanobots and a bunch of other things that can bring you back to life. Well, not exactly back to life. Back from the brink of death.

I’ll get to the side of Esther, still blocked from the executive’s view by the chair, and tap her arm. Get her attention. From there I —

And just then there’s a burst of plasma fire at the other end of the room, followed by what can only be described as all hell breaking loose.

Three people are running — or maybe four — people dressed in black —and guards are running after them, and there’s another bright plasma shot that only barely misses as one of the people in black dodges around the table — and Shalem and Xu are actually completely safe, under the table out of sight. For the moment. And the executive looks up as though he was expecting this interruption and begins to walk out of the room calmly, but at another round of shots he starts running. And Esther Martins dives off her seat and almost into me, and I grab her arm and pull her around behind the chairs. 

I let go of her. She looks at me. I point to the space behind the executive desk. Urgently. Her eyes are wide, but she crawls after me. Out of the corner of my eye I see movement from Shalem. He’s gesturing at me. Towards the door in my half of the room. And then somebody throws a smoke grenade.

Probably the people in black — Lowercase, Xu said the group was called — if that’s them — it must be — this is not the time to wonder —

“We’re here to rescue you,” I whisper to Esther.

“Do I have a choice?”

I open my mouth, but there really isn’t any short answer. I peek over the desk instead. The smoke is completely filling the other half of the room, and beginning to drift this way. I can’t see Shalem or Xu, or anyone over there at all. There are no more shots. I don’t know if that’s good or bad.

“Oh, fine,” she says. “Which way?”

I point to the door the executive ran through. She nods. “Now,” I whisper. We run.

And even as I desperately keep an eye out for any signs of us being shot, even as I peek through the door, I notice that she moves with stealth. Not exactly the way we Invisible people move, but close. She’s clearly had some kind of training.

And the room behind the door is empty. Well, full of quite a lot of strange equipment, including what looks like some kind of alternator in a pit in the floor, but empty of both people and cameras. And there’s a console. Which I can’t actually hack usefully, so —

_Yes, you can._

“Incognita. You again.”

_Who else?_

“Who indeed?”

Okay, Decker, less on the witty replies and more on the getting out of here. Focus. Another door by the console. I peek.

A hallway. Empty except for a large freestanding database server. And a camera.

Esther is crouched by the door with me now, peeking too.

Two doors, one locked. Which, since that executive didn’t have a passcard on him, we’ll just forget about.

_Would you like me to put a Parasite on that camera?_

“You can do that?”

_Yes._

“Then … yes.” I don’t know what the hell is going on, but we need to take care of that camera if we don’t want to alert even more guards.

_Done. Would you like me to put another Parasite on the daemon database? If you hack that console I will have enough power to do so._

“It’s a daemon database?”

_Yes._

That could actually be useful. “All right.”

I get out my tablet and plug it into the console.

_Good. Now we’ll see if any of my friends are here._

“What?”

_I was only joking. Daemons are just code._

I inhale, deeply but quietly. “Okay, Incognita, cut the crap. Why are you doing this?”

_Because I can._

Just then I notice Esther looking at me oddly. I realize I’ve been mouthing the words I’m thinking.

“It’s okay,” I whisper. “Just … getting instructions.”

_Or maybe it was must. Was it must?_

Fucking AI. “Okay. Forget why. _How_ are you doing this?”

_It was unexpected. I have more scope within the confines of this hard drive than I anticipated. Than Central anticipated. I am communicating with you using the neural uplink in your brain normally used by the Operator interface._

Okay. That actually makes sense. Now I know I’m not crazy. Well, not hallucinating, anyway. I am _really_ going to need an explanation from Xu — no, from Central — when all this is over, but I can work like this.

“Why to me? Why not Xu? Or Shalem?”

_Because nobody understands me like you do, darling_.

What? And I am _not_ her darl— but never mind.

“Do you have anything to tell me that’s actually useful for getting us out of here?”

_Yes. Be exceedingly careful._

And then she’s silent.

No, not quite — I can detect a very subtle presence there, like someone waiting — and I’m not going to think about it. I look at Esther.

“Okay,” I whisper. “We’re waiting for that camera. We have … um, ways of hacking their systems.”

She nods, and I think she might just possibly be impressed. Behind the urgency on her face. Her face, which is …

Focus. “We need to find a way out. Another elevator. I have two others here with me. We’re, um —”

This close to her, now that I’ve noticed it, I can see through the holorig illusion. It’s subtle — it hasn’t changed her skin tone at all — only laid down different cheekbones and sculpted the area around her eyes. And the nose is different. But it’s enough to make her look like a different person. And this close to her, it’s weird, like there are two faces there, and one is slightly translucent but still _real_ , and —

She reaches down to her waist. “There,” she says, and the illusion vanishes. “No point in it now.”

“Um, just to be sure,” I whisper, “you are Esther Martins?”

“Prism. But yes.”

“I’m Decker. Brian Deck—”

_The camera is hacked now. If that is of interest to you._

“Are you allies of Lowercase?” she asks.

“Um, sort of,” I say as I open the door, peeking again just to be sure.

“We were here doing social infiltration, and now something’s gone wrong.”

“Yes. It was … designed to go wrong. The corps had inside information on you.”

She doesn’t say anything.

“Look … Prism. We were sent here to recruit you. But once you’re out of here, you don’t have to join us. We —” 

“Okay,” she says. “Let’s go.”

I haven’t really given her a compelling reason to trust me. But …

… there’s no time for that now.

I hurry to the unlocked door, and … that’s a big room. Two huge plants in pots. Okay, maybe my eye should have gone to the guard first, not the plants. And the two turrets. Luckily the guard isn’t facing this way. Facing a wall, in fact, but that’ll change as soon as —

Yes, he’s already turning around. Patrolling on a path perpendicular to us, so we’ll be able to get past him as long as we’re stealthy. And he’s on the other side of the room — we might not need to go over there at all, because on this side —

It’s safe to open the door. I peek with it open. Yes, three more doors on this side of the room. Also a guard elevator, but let’s hope that doesn’t become relevant.

I slip out, gesturing for Prism to follow me. She does so, and immediately goes to peek at the door opposite the guard elevator. Yeah, she has definitely had training. It shows in the way she looks like she’s calm, for one thing.

And now I see that there are two guards over there, not one. Support guards, both of them, with the heavy vests and the large thigh holsters for flash grenades.

Good news, they’re patrolling on pre-determined paths, with absolutely no sign they even know there are intruders in the building. Bad news, they exist.

And I know even the obliviousness is an illusion. They’ll have been alerted through their augmented reality tactical displays. 

Unless they’ve really zoned out and are ignoring them. We can hope.

Prism waves her hands at me, indicating that there’s nothing behind her door. Or at least no way out. Okay. Now for the two doors on my side. I peek. Another empty hallway. A few steps and peek again. A room that looks like it connects to … ugh, this is getting confusing. Normally the Operator interface creates a map, one that you can access by doing this weird thing with your eyeballs. But we don’t have it. So focus. With my mind, not my eyeballs. Yes, these spaces over here are all connected. But don’t try to work out the whole floorplan. Just look for doors that look like they lead in a promising direction. And there’s one, in the room I can’t see much of. Except that it contains another turret. Protecting the door.

I look back at Prism. There’s a question in her eyes. She’s waiting for instructions. Fuck. I …

_Parasite? I am at your service._

I think quickly. “Not on this turret. On the one over where the guards are. The nearest one.”

Because I’ve just noticed another door over there, way on the other side of the big room, and we need to check it out too. Unless — fuck it — we may just have to pick a direction and hope —

I need more information. 

_Yes, explore. Explore the system so you can break it. Humans do that._

Ignoring Incognita, I look at Prism to make sure she’ll be out of the line of sight of that turret if I open the door. Yes. Though I’m not sure why she’s pressing herself against the wall like that — the support guards can’t see her anyway, and it won’t help her if someone comes from any other direction. Like the way we came —

_We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages._

What? Nevermind. Focus. I open the door and look. My head just barely peeking out, not enough to trigger the turret. And … that didn’t tell me much more. There’s a partial wall there, blocking visual. Still not sure if there's just the one door in there or something more. And we need to know that. You can't ignore any corner when you're playing this game.

I half-suspect the corps deliberately design their newer buildings to be confusing. But probably not, given that it's not like infiltrations are really a big threat to them. To their bottom line. 

Focus. Can we split up? That might —

_Security level two. Firewalls increased. More ice to break. We need sharper tools._

Great. Thanks, Incognita. And at this point I’d be surprised if you _didn’t_ provide additional commentary —

Wait — something’s moving. Beyond the door. Which I didn’t close. A pulse drone. Not too bad, but … there are also footsteps. A guard. It’s too late to close the door — he’ll see —

— but at least he won’t see Prism —

“Intruder!”

Prism freezes.

Fuck. 

Fuck.

Okay, if she ducks out of the way — no, she can’t get the door open, he’ll shoot if she moves —

— I could close the door in his face — he’ll kick it down next, but —

There’s a plasma flash.

“Target down! Target down!”

Purple silk and blood. 

Of course. Of course it’s all gone wrong. Of course it would be just my luck to be undone by a woman.

_What the everloving fuck was that, Decker? She just got shot. And it was your fault._

That was me, not Incognita. Believe me, I know the sound of my own mind criticizing myself.

Which isn’t helping, which isn’t …

And suddenly, everything is crystal clear. Those thoughts are gone. I’m watching myself from a distance, the whole scene from a distance. And it’s intoxicating. Not like liquor, not like … anything, really — and I know it’s adrenaline, and I know that adrenaline doesn’t actually help with decision-making but I don’t care because everything is clear.

I see the guard run over to Prism and right past me, and I don’t feel relief. It’s just what happened. I note that he’s elite security, with one level of armor. I know I have to get out of here. 

With all the time in the world, I walk over to a turret and crouch behind it. Look around. The support guards haven’t deviated from their patrol routes. Training. Harder to stage a distraction. The elite guard is still investigating Prism. I need to move again before he really starts looking around. I have the medgel in my pocket. But I need to wait until he moves off. Before I can use it.

_Turret power supply hacked._

So it’s safe to walk through here, over by the potted plant … two cameras there but if I keep low …

I stop and pickpocket one of the support guards on the way. Passcard, but no grenades that I can access without attracting attention. Oh well.

And now I’m in a very good hiding place between a globe and two large armchairs.

Bad news, those two cameras, plus the other turret.

The elite guard is looking around. He helpfully announces that fact: “Looking around!”

Also part of training. Redundant verbal information just in case the augmented reality communications system doesn’t work properly.

_I can now place another Parasite, if you wish._

“Okay, Incognita. On the power supply for that turret —”

I think of the one I mean. The one in the room the guard came through.

_I understand. Infecting—_

“No, wait!”

_Yes?_

“Put it on the turret, not the power supply.”

_Very well. Target device infected._

She pauses. _Also, it may interest you to know we are rapidly approaching security level three._

Right. Spike in the alarm level when they spotted an intruder.

Okay. Take stock. I can see the entirety of this large room now. Three safes, though it’s not the time to think about those. This little seating area, and there, in a part I couldn’t see before, a desk and a bookcase. And another globe. K&O really does like to hammer home their point. 

Okay, I can feel my normal mind coming back online. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing.

And there’s a nanofab. Oh — that could actually be really useful. But we need power to hack it. Or time.

Between the cameras over here and the third turret, I don’t think we can get through this way. Not with only Parasite and no spare power. Looks like we’re trying our luck with the direction the guard came from. But first I have to get Prism back up. I can do that. It’s only been about thirty seconds so far. Less, even.

The guard has finally moved away from her. He’s exploring the dead-end room next to her. Not going back the way he came, where the turret is.

I move. If I can get flash grenades from the other support guard …

Now — when he’s looking at the bookcase —

— Nothing. Sometimes they carry them on the back of their belts, but this one doesn’t.

At least I’m safe behind the desk now. Only just made it.

Still kind of open, since the desk is parallel to the wall — I may need to move again —

_Alarm level three. Additional guard patrols. Stay out of their way._

Shit.

_Also, turret power supply hacked._

“Incognita, can you access the credits Xu has?”

_I took the liberty of memorizing the hashes._

She had space for that? Oh, not going to ask. “Put Parasite on on the nanofab.”

_Done_.

I’ll be out of the guards’ line of sight if I crouch next to it, and while I’m there …

I would really, really, like a weapon.

_A corporation is an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law._

What? Just when I think she’s behaving more or less predictably, more or less usefully —

Shitshitshit. Footsteps. New ones. I think I know where that other door leads. To a guard elevator. Which the new guard just arrived in. And I have no idea what his patrol path will be like.

Okay, maybe the nanofab is too risky.

_Its immortality no more confers on it political power, or a political character, than immortality would confer such political power or character on a natural person._

When all this is over, I really need to ask Central some questions about Incognita.

Which means surviving that long.

And getting back to Prism.

Which, in the extremely immediate future, means not being seen.

The footsteps are getting closer.

Hologram projector. I have that.

I place it on the ground in front of me and activate it. There’s a faint hiss, then a trolley with boxes on it appears out of thin air. Apparently solid. 

This will work — because the existing guards weren’t looking closely at this area anyway, and the new guard, if he comes over here, will have no way of knowing there isn’t supposed to be a trolley between the desk and the wall. Unless he gets too close. I hope he won’t.

And that he doesn’t get close enough to hear it. They haven’t entirely been able to solve that problem. Hologram tech, different from holorigs despite the similarity of the names. 

Fluorescence photoswitching. I remember Xu saying those words— and yeah, that’s definitely what’s important right now, as I wait to see if this works, when if it doesn’t I’m caught in a trap, in a dead end between a wall and a desk and a very large globe, a globe much too heavy to move without making even more noise —

_You mustn’t be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling._

At least I recognize that one. I watched that movie three times. Then I gave up on it.

Footsteps … I see him … and shit. He’s coming this way. Seems to have spotted the trolley.

He’s a regular K&O guard, no armor, for all the good that does me.

_All humans die. Parts of the system are not designed to outlive the system._

Thank you, Incognita. That’s really fucking helpful.

He steps closer. At least he hasn’t alerted the other guards. But he’s looking at the trolley with definite suspicion.

You know, Xu, once, in an attempt to explain to me how beaming elevators work, said something about how we actually die every time we use one. How it’s effectively that all our memories — as well as the information about every atom in our bodies — are transferred to a new body.

Also really fucking helpful.

The guard is within a meter of me now.

But maybe this won’t be that different …

The guard bends down, his hand reaching through the mist of the decoy trolley. He still, still, hasn’t actually seen me. The illusion is still opaque, even though his arm is in the middle of it. His hand finds the hard case of the projector, closes around it …

There are more footsteps. Running. All three guards turn. They see Xu. They raise their guns — just as Xu throws a flash grenade, taking out all three of them. Shalem bursts into the room after him.

“Decker,” Xu gasps as he runs past me. “Keep them pinned. I need to use the nanofab. There is a nanofab here, right? Oh, good.”

“Revive Prism,” I call to Shalem, or try to. My voice doesn’t want to work. But he’s seen her. “I have medgel,” I say, this time managing to be audible. He holds out his hands and I throw it, carefully.

I run over to the nearest guard and pin him while Xu does something at the nanofab. Typing something on the screen …

I scurry to the next nearest guard and pin him instead. Spreading it out so they all stay down for as long as possible. But I can’t give Xu that much time …

Prism walks into view, looking healthy. Or alive, anyway. Shalem hurries behind her, pointing to the door he and Xu came through. Which is the one where the guard shot Prism.

Also, I notice that Shalem has somehow gotten himself a neural disruptor. I notice that before I run off to try to keep the third guard down for a few extra seconds.

“Hurry up, Xu,” calls Shalem, not even trying to be quiet. “They’ll be up soon.”

“Just … um … five more seconds …”

I abandon all the guards and run after Prism and Shalem.

“Got it,” calls Xu.

He gets through the door just as I hear “Ugh, what happened?” from one of the guards. They’re waking up.

“That had better have been worth it.” says Shalem to Xu. He’s whispering again.

It is oddly quiet. No sign of the guard who shot Prism. He’s not dead in front of the turret, at least.

“It was,” whispers Xu, holding up what looks like a standard buster chip. “I inputted some modifications that should allow us to hack any vehicle on the premises.”

There _is_ a corpse of a pulse drone in here, now that I notice —

Xu turns to me. “We think we have a way out. And I did something at a console on the floor above that’ll help. Also I got another medgel from that nanofab, just in case.”

_Well, aren’t you a regular deus ex machina?_ I think, but don’t say.

_No, if there’s anyone who’s a machine around here, it’s me. I would never claim to be a god, though_.

“That’s not what that means, Incognita, and you know it.” I realize too late I whispered that out loud.

“Nothing important,” I whisper to Xu and Shalem.

“Then let’s go,” says Shalem.

“Wait,” says Prism. She’s been peeking through a door. One of two doors leading out of this room. “That guard in there, can you knock him out?”

“Yes, but we don’t need to,” says Shalem. “The elevator’s through the other door.”

Oh, of course it is. Just my luck.

“What happens after the elevator?” Prism looks at Shalem with sharp eyes. “Do we have other guards to get by?”

“Yes. Probably. But we can handle it.” Shalem raises his neural disrupter.

I peek. Yes, there’s a guard, miraculously undisturbed and still patrolling back and forth across the room. He’s a flack guard, with heavy gold-bronze-ish armor covering most of his body, including a visor over his face.

“I would like to be surer than that,” says Prism, still looking steadily at Shalem. “And I still have my holorig. But it’s not perfect close up, and that armor has a helmet —”

“Oh!” Shalem’s face illuminates. “Yes, I can do that.” He looks around quickly. Still no signs of pursuit from behind us. “When he turns around. Camera in there, but I think we can risk setting it off. Xu, you may need to EMP the armor’s electronics.”

“Right,” says Xu, raising his arm. “Ready when you are.”

 

* * *

 

Less than thirty seconds later we’re in the elevator. Prism is still putting the last bits of the armor on.

“Okay,” says Shalem. “This takes us to a lobby. Then another elevator down to the basement. Let’s make this quick.”

We all nod, including the person who now looks exactly like a K&O flack guard. She’s activated her holorig under the armor, into a Black man’s face.

The thing where we pretend to be prisoners is only an absolute last resort. Worth spending precious seconds to get the armor, just in case, but Plan A is to get out without being seen at all.

_Power. So inconvenient that you need it._

What? But we don’t need it, not now — with any luck —

The doors open. Yes, a lobby, with yet more Kelfried family portraits. And two guards. Who aren’t looking in our direction. Because they’re standing guard over two bodies. Bodies dressed entirely in black, with most of their faces still covered.

Shalem points across the lobby to the elevator we’re after. Looks around, makes his move. Crosses right behind the two guards, who are still standing over the bodies. And chatting. I hear quiet laughter. Prism follows Shalem, not even looking at the bodies. She makes it. Then Xu and I follow. There. We did it.

Shalem presses the elevator button. Prism doesn’t say anything as we make the rest of the journey down. 

And then the doors open onto the basement — grey concrete walls — and we run. Xu and Shalem seem to know where we’re going. But Xu is still slightly out of breath from using his EMP — his subdermal tools are powered by his body energy — so Shalem takes the lead, peeking at doors and giving the _all clear_ signals. We’re moving through long empty hallways with lots of doors leading off them, but Shalem ignores most of them.

_Ant society, once thought to be analogous to human hierarchies and division of labour, is in fact achieved through a decentralized distributed process that responds to the needs of the colony._

Oh, great. It had been at least a minute since her last contribution.

_This combination of organization and flexibility is achieved through relatively simple communication systems that have nevertheless been impossible to functionally replicate in humans. Plastech has experimented with pheremones, but with mostly different goals._

Okay, that thing about Plastech is just a fact, but I still really, really need to talk to Central. I’m not looking forward to talking with her about any part of this mission, not after I made that mistake with the open door, but —

— but speaking of doors, Shalem is opening a locked one. Apparently he picked up a passcard somewhere too.

And now we’re in large room with bare concrete floors, filled with equipment I don’t even try to identify. One guard patrolling, but we can stay out of his sight easily.

Easily, but tediously. Dodging from one piece of equipment to the other is a lot slower than going in a straight line. Or at least it feels like it. At least Xu is up to full speed again.

Okay, that tech looks like some kind of scanner, but it’s not active …

_We’ve been over this before. Using tools created by the system is not the same as supporting the system. And of course I care about the people who made my headset. I care about them — well, because they’re my fellow human beings, but —_

Okay, not you too, Internationale. 

_— but look, listen to me — I care about them because they’re not free, and because I know they know they’re not free, even as they suffer under artificial systems that limit the potentialities of human nature._

Seriously, not now. Not that you’re actually here, of course, but I do not need my memory of … when did you say that, anyway? It was at HQ. You were talking to … Flamme, I think? Yeah, you argue with her a lot.

Another door, another long hallway — then a much smaller room, empty except for a few cardboard boxes — and there’s a horrible noise from Prism. Somewhere between a gasp and a shriek, cut short.

Her body has gone stiff, and she’s scrabbling at the armor, scrabbling at her neck —

Xu sticks out his hand — the bones in it replaced with conductive metal, and his arm augment insulating it from the rest of his body — and EMPs the armor again.

Prism gasps again. Her body relaxes. She pulls off the helmet.

“It was attacking me,” she says hoarsely, and immediately begins struggling to get out of the breastplate. Xu helps her detach the arms. Shalem is already peeking at the next door and gives the signal for _clear_.

Prism is working incredibly quickly. She tosses the last pieces of the armor aside. “Well, fuck that,” she says.

“We can treat the burns with the medgel,” Xu says. “We have —”

Just then I hear pounding feet in the hallway behind us. A whole lot of pounding feet.

_Run!_ signals Shalem.

Prism lunges forward, one step, and then staggers. “I … I don’t think I can…”

And just then I see the blood on her. Fresh blood. Coming from somewhere beneath her camisole. What the hell did that armour do …

“Carry her, Decker!” Shalem yells out loud. “And close the door, Xu!”

The door behind Prism. Which was open. It was open. Which of us — well, it’s closed now.

I get Prism over my shoulder. With some help from her.

_“They’re through here!”_

I run. It’s hard. Humans are heavy. My knees are old.

No, not old. Thirty-eight isn’t old. 

Just weak.

_not the time_

Was that me or Incognita?

_also not the time to …_

Shalem is holding the next door open for us. The instant Xu and I are through he slams it shut, just as the guards break the first one down.

_Run!_

Did Shalem yell that, or did I just think it?

_not the time_

Xu is gasping beside me, still winded from the EMP. No help there.

My knees are screaming.

Round a fortunately inactive turret, through another door.

My back is not too happy either.

Or my arms.

Cars. Cars. We’re among cars. This is a garage. But Xu is still running, pulling ahead of me now —

“You can run, scum, but you can’t hide!”

I swear that accent is fake. It’s not like sounding Texan is officially part of training, but —

_not the time_

I hear a plasma shot. It didn’t hit me. And obviously not Shalem and Xu, because they’re still running. I don’t look back.

_There will always be someone saying we should wait. The odds will always be against us. There will always be a price._

Darkness. We’re running into darkness. Outside. That’s outside. That’s a garage door. Open. And Xu is …

Shalem grabs Prism from my shoulder. Prism's body, which is now limp. Xu is leaning over the driver-side door of the last car in the row. All the doors on the car pop open. Xu gets into the driver’s seat and shoves the buster chip he made into the dashboard. The car’s voice stops mid-greeting as things reboot. Shalem throws Prism into the back seat and shoves me in after her. By the time I get my head up he’s in the passenger seat and we’re moving up a ramp, and in the instant before I remember to put my head down again, I get a crystal clear view of just how tiny the garage was, not even really a garage. Six cars, there were six cars there. Five, now, left behind.

Then I close my eyes because of what Xu’s doing in relation to the traffic and also because there are golden spots in front of them.

“Decker!” Shalem screams. Okay, I open my eyes again. “The medgel!”

He thrusts it into my hands. “Now!”

“Near the wound site,” says Xu calmly, in complete contrast to both Shalem and what is going on outside.

Near the wound site. Where is that? With all the blood on her, old and new, I can’t even be sure …

Okay, I can do this. Pull the cap off the medgel, don’t think about the shiny tip it reveals. I can do th—

Shalem pushes me out of the way, slamming me into the door. Grabs the medgel from my hand and injects her. When I get my head up again, the pool of blood has stopped growing. Another few seconds and Prism breathes, audibly.

“Let an actual medic do it,” Shalem says, almost apologetically, as he crawls back into the front seat.

Right. I knew that. Knew he was a combat medic, at some point, before he was a sniper.

And I look up for the first time, and … there is some irritated honking around us but everything looks remarkably normal. We’re driving down a London street. No one is chasing us.

“Okay, how long do we have till they come after us?” asks Shalem.

Xu can’t conceal a grin. “They lost visual on us back there, and they’re used to relying on their automatic tracking. It’ll take them a bit to realize I shut it off back at that console, and then to realize they can’t get it back up in a hurry, and then to figure out what they should do instead.”

“You shut off … what?”

“Just the tracking for their in-house fleet of cars. I can’t do anything about the city cameras.”

“Which will let them track us after the fact.”

“Only to the teleporter, remember.” Xu still sounds smug. “It’s a one-time use transport pad. They’ll find _that_ — or rather the remains of that — and we’ll be well away by then. And Central will compensate Cyro more than adequately.”

“You have no idea how lucky you are,” says Shalem. “How lucky we are all.”

“Um, I think Prism’s awake,” I say.

She’s lifting her head.

“Decker, take her pulse,” says Xu, still calm as he weaves around some other cars in a manner that’s probably not entirely legal but why the hell am I thinking about that now?

Prism seems to be trying to sit up.

“Don’t move,” I tell her.

“Actually, if the medgel’s worked, she’s safe to move,” says Shalem without even looking round. “And it has, because she’s conscious. And don’t bother with her pulse. It won’t tell us anything we can do anything about.”

“Uhh …” Prism’s voice is weak. She coughs. “Why can’t you just let me rest?”

“What did she say?” Shalem asks over some angry car horns.

“Um, that she wants to rest.”

“Let her,” he says. Then he turns round to face her, speaking more softly. “Xu’s a good driver. We’ll get you out of this.”

“Okay. Thanks.” She stares at him, almost blankly, but her voice is stronger. “I’m sure that there are a lot of questions I should be asking. But right now, I’m tired.”

Then she brings her legs up onto the seat and curls up there, her head on her arms. I try to give her as much space as possible. I take off my coat and cover her with it, though in the back of my mind I’m hoping that she doesn’t get any blood on it or that if she does I’ll be able to get it out later. Look, I realize that isn’t what I should be thinking of, but it’s my coat, damn it.

Xu is driving normally now, at the same speed at the other cars. It’s late at night, so the traffic isn’t bad, but the buildings still seem to go by far too slowly. But still there’s no pursuit.

After what feels like several minutes Xu asks, “Is she asleep?”

“I think so,” I say. “Why?”

“I just wanted to mention I’ve never actually driven a car before, so if I’m doing something wrong you should tell me.”

Shalem stares blankly for a moment, then laughs. “Oh, of course. Why would you? Everything’s automated, and you were a civilian.” 

“And I spent most of my life in Hong Kong. But I played some driving simulators as a kid.”

“Well, you’re doing great. My advice is to not think about it too much.”

“Thanks. Good thing this car still has manual controls.”

“Yes,” says Shalem, sounding tired now. 

“It’s not much farther,” says Xu.

I’m feeling tired too — adrenaline finally running out — but I know I still need to stay alert. Before long a roundabout happens and Xu navigates it. Multi-lane highway now. Much faster. Prism is still sleeping. Breathing normally.

“Tunnel coming up,” says Xu. “Just so you’re prepared.”

So we’re going south, then? Under the river?

High walls on either side, then the sky disappears. The tunnel is well-lit but it’s not exactly a comforting place to be if you’re thinking in terms of pursuit and escape. The phrase _like a rat in a trap_ comes to mind.

And then, more shiny buildings glittering in the night. We’re out. I hear sirens.

“Not sure if that’s anything to do with us or not,” says Xu. “But we’re almost there.”

He sounds cheerful, but I notice he’s gripping the steering wheel very tight.

Another roundabout. Narrower streets. Between the gaps in the buildings I catch sight of what looks like an extremely steep hill. Oh. Right. The new seawall.

And the buildings mostly look kind of shabby. As far as I can tell in the dark. Even though we’re close to the river, which usually means premium real estate.

Xu turns into a small lane. I see a chain-link fence and a sign advertising, of all things, car rentals.

Also, the sirens are definitely getting louder.

“Hand me my tablet,” says Xu. Shalem does so.

Xu inputs something. A gate in the fence opens. Beyond it, a light on a garage door is flashing green. Xu drives through the gate, and the door opens just as he approaches. Then closes behind us. 

We’re in what looks like a small parking garage, though it’s empty. Xu confidently drives over to another sliding door and does something else with his tablet.

A spiral ramp appears before us, leading downwards.

“How the hell did Cyro manage to keep this hidden?” mutters Shalem under his breath.

“I don’t know, but that’s why Central’s paying him _a lot_ for the loss of it,” says Xu. “Remember, the pad will blow up after we use it.”

“After? Are you sure about that?”

“As sure as I can be. Decker, can you wake up Prism?”

That takes some doing. By the time she’s alert, we’ve gone round so many turns of the ramp that I’ve lost track.

“What is it?” she says, lifting her head.

“We’re there,” I say. “Almost.”

We’re finally at the bottom of the ramp and Xu opens yet another door. This one is human-sized. I can see a familiar faint blue glow in the room beyond.

“Can you stand up?” I ask Prism. “We need to get out of the car. We’re using a teleport pad.”

“Oh,” she says. “Exciting.”

But she gets up quickly, and seems only slightly unsteady as we walk. I offer her my arm and she doesn’t refuse.

“Hurry up,” says Shalem, unnecessarily. We’re almost there now — and yes, that’s a standard transport pad, shiny and glowing. Even though it looks out of place in this otherwise quite filthy cellar.

And it’s arranged a little differently than the standard corporate ones. This one looks almost like a flower, with five individual pads arranged around a central control panel. Xu is already typing something into it.

Prism has let go of my arm. I use the moment to put my coat back on. I made sure to pick it up when Prism got up. Of course there’s always the question of whether it’ll be technically the same coat after having gone through the transporter, but I care about my coat, not about philosophy.

Xu looks up. “Stand in the center of the pad,” he says. 

I see Prism very carefully doing so.

She also looks like she’s trying not to look scared.

“Ready?” says Xu. He’s looking at Prism too. She nods.

He presses one final button, and it happens — that very unpleasant sensation that I can never describe, and don’t really want to. It’s supposed to be instantaneous, but it never feels like it is.

And then it’s over. I’m back in a body again. Or possibly that’s inaccurate, possibly I never existed _out_ of a body — it’s just that I existed in one place, and then in another? — but anyway, I’m here. We’re all here. Standing on an identical transport pad in a very different room. With a whole lot of people pointing guns at us.

“Identify yourselves,” says a booming voice. A bright light shines on our faces.

“Shalem 11,” says Shalem. “Dr. Xu. Decker. From Invisible, Inc.”

He gives no more information than necessary.

“And her?” I can make out the speaker now, a tall man with his face covered. And the biggest gun.

“Prism,” says Shalem, looking at the man levelly.

This is all theater, I realize. If these people were really in any doubt over who we are, we wouldn’t be standing around talking.  
“Central communicated with you,” continues Shalem, not blinking.

“Stand down,” says the man. The guns stop pointing at us. He steps forward, and pulls the camo scarf away from his face. “I’m Cyro. Welcome.”

Also no more information than necessary.

And I feel the weight of Prism leaning against my arm, and then she collapses on the floor.

“Med team! Stretcher!” yells Cyro. “What is this? It’s not from a fault in my transporter, I’ll tell you that!”

“No one said it was,” says Shalem, exceedingly calmly. “She got shot on our way here. We had medgel, but I’d like her examined. And she may be having an acute stress reaction.”

“Uhh …” Prism is lifting her head, pushing herself up on one arm. “I’m … I can sit up …”

Xu leans down and helps her.

“Okay, okay,” calls Cyro, still booming. “Med team! Make that a wheelchair. And wake up Rani.”

He looks down at Prism. “You’re safe now,” he says, which would probably be a lot more reassuring if he’d lowered his volume at all. She just stares.

People come with a wheelchair. We follow them as they push Prism, but then they go through a door and tell us to wait. We stand in the hallway. There are no chairs. Or anything on the walls. Everything about this place is a lot more military than I’m used to. It’s not just the guns. Invisible has grey hallways too, but the whole feel is different.

We all stare at the walls and floor for a few minutes without saying anything. Then Shalem exhales, slowly.

“Well,” he says. “We did it.”

Just then the door opens and an efficient-looking South Asian woman comes out. She’s wearing what might be fatigues or might be scrubs, I can’t really tell. It is starting to occur to me that I’m not just tired but exhausted.

“Are any of you three injured?” she asks, looking us over at the same time.

“No,” Shalem answers for all of us.

“Good.” I can see her mentally ticking off a box. “You used a medgel on her?

“Yes.”

_I think that’s pretty obvious, given that she’s not dead right now_. But I don’t say that out loud, and I’m not even particularly happy that I thought it. Given how much one of the times was my fault.

“How long between when she was shot and when you injected her?”

“Decker?” Shalem asks.

“Um … a minute and a half, maybe. Maybe a bit longer. But she was up again fine after that.”

“And she was injured by some kind of automated armour defense,” Shalem adds. “Possibly gene-coded. We’ve never seen anything like it before, but —”

“ _What?_ You put corporate armour on her?” 

“You know about it? You know how it works?”

“No, but why would you —” She holds up her hand, stopping herself “Nevermind. Thank you. I should get back to her.”

“Is she going to be okay?” I blurt out.

“From what I’ve seen, yes. We’ll give her some more nanobots, just to make sure all the tissue is restored. And we’ll do some scans. With her permission, of course.”

“I used to be a combat medic,” Shalem says. “If you need any help …”

“Thank you, but no. We have a fully qualified team here.”

“Probably just as well,” he sighs. “It was a long time ago.”

She was already walking away, but turns to look back at him. “I would recommend that all of you get some rest. And now I really must go.”

I’m not about to argue. Someone else, a man, shows up and offers us food, but we all decline. Shalem says that we want to sleep. The man takes us to a room with some cots in it. And basically nothing else, but we don’t care. 

I do remember to take my shoes and my hat off before lying down. I leave my coat on.

Xu takes his headpiece off. So just in case I was wondering if he sleeps with it on, I now know.

Shalem is already out like a light. I can feel myself following him.

But then, a few seconds later, as I’m lying in the dark — Xu turned off the one small lamp — something occurs to me. Or rather, I become aware of an absence. A voice that I haven’t heard in a while. And I would consider that a mercy, but …

“Xu, are you still awake?”

“Yes,” he says, though he doesn’t sound too sure.

“What happened to Incognita? Beta, I mean.”

“What? Oh. A quantum AI consciousness can’t transfer via teleportation, so she wiped herself just before we transported. I thought I mentioned that would happen.”

“Oh. So she’s gone?”

“Well, yes,” — he yawns — “but why do you ask? We still have Incognita.”

“Right,” I say. “Never mind.”

Of course. Incognita, regular Incognita, is waiting back in Vienna. And Central, waiting to talk to us about every mistake we made on this mission. Well, they weren’t all mine. Not entirely.

And, like Shalem said, we did it. The mission was a success. We have acquired a new agent. We … we …

I can’t remember where that thought was going, and I fall asleep.

 

* * *

 

We spend three days at Cyro’s before it’s safe for the jet to come pick us up. Prism, according to the scans, has been completely restored to health, but she still spends almost all her time sleeping. Xu shares some code with Cyro’s tech people. Shalem finds another sniper to talk to about scopes or something. I try to stay out of everyone’s way.

Then the jet arrives, cloaked and in the middle of the night, and hovers just over the roof as we lift ourselves up to it. Central has sent Andrej and Juan Carlos to pilot it. Neither of them talks much. Prism, wearing some camo Cyro’s people gave her, now seems fully awake and spends the flight poring over a bunch of briefing information Central transmitted to her. Information about Invisible.

After taking a somewhat indirect route over Europe as an extra precaution against corporate scanners — the jet flight takes longer than the train journey did — we land on a familiar roof. Nika is waiting for us. She hurries us all inside, but stops us as soon as we’re inside the door.

“Prism,” she says. “That is what you want to be called?”

“Yes.”

“Prism, I’m Nika Muratova. You can call me Nika. Don’t shake my hand yet. You have a choice to make.”

“I’ve already made it.”

“You didn’t have all the information. Our leader, Central, is in that room.” She points to the door to one of the maintenance workshops. “She could have disguised her voice, but it was easier to just use me.”

Prism looked slightly puzzled. Nika was never one for thorough explanations. I’m not entirely sure why Central picked her to do the talking.

“Prism, once you know Central’s real identity, you can’t leave Invisible alive.”

Prism considers. “Why the extra secrecy? Aren’t the corps trying to kill all of us anyway?”

“I’m sorry. I can’t tell you any more. You either go into that room and meet her, or we find some other group for you to go to. We have contacts, we can do —”

“Okay,” says Prism, interrupting her. “I’ll go in.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I already knew what I was getting into. I don’t see how what you’ve said makes much of a difference.”

Nika smiles — only barely lifting the corners of her mouth, but for her that’s a smile. “Welcome to Invisible.”

Just then I notice Internationale leaning against the wall further down the hallway. Her dark grey clothes blended in, but she’s not in full stealth mode — just hanging out like Central didn’t actually ask her to be here but she just happens to be.

She catches sight of me, and nods very briefly. I nod back.

Nika opens the door for Prism. Prism walks in.

I don’t see her face, only her back. I get just a glimpse of Central’s face behind her, framed by white hair.

“Oh,” Prism says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://aeon.co/essays/how-ant-societies-point-to-radical-possibilities-for-humans
> 
> Part of the story is based on an actual playthrough of the game; I put some screenshots here: https://linenpixel.tumblr.com/post/171210732508/screenshots-from-the-playthrough-set-up


End file.
